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STANFORD UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES

4

LOVE OF LIFE
AND OTHER STORIES

" lie watched the play of life before him.''

LOVE OF LIFE

AND OTHER STORIES

BY

JACK LONDON

imBOS OF "THX CALL OP IBS WILD,"
OF TBB ABVSS^" XICv XXCt

"Stio Hotit

PUBLISHED FOR

THE REVIEW OF REVIEWS COMPANY

BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY

London: MACMILLAN & 00, Ltd.

1912

Ali rightt reserved

A . ■

NVk

CoraoGHT, Z906,
By THE MACMILLAN COMPANY.

Set up and dectrotjped. Published September, 1907.
December, 1907; December, 191 z.

mew vowc mty, n. v., u. ». a.

Contents

FAGB

Love of Life •••••••• i

A Day's Lodgmg • • . • • • •43

The White Man's Way 77

The StcMy*of Kccsh 105

The Unexpected 123

Brown Wolf 167

The Sun-Dog Trafl 201

Negore, the Coward ••••••• 243

LOVE OF LIFE

LOVE Oh LIFE*

"Thfe out of aU will remain —

They have lived and have tossed:
So much of the game will be gain,
Though the gold of the dice has been lost."

THEY limped painfully dovm the bank, and
once the foremost of the tv^o men staggered
among the rough-strev^n rocks. They v^ere
tired and weak, and their faces had the drawn
expression of patience which comes of hardship
long endured. They were heavily burdened with
blanket packs which were strapped to their shoulders.
Head-straps, passing across the forehead, helped sup-
port these packs. Each man carried a rifle. They
walked in a stooped posture, the shoulders well
forward, the head still farther forward, the eyes
bent upon the ground.

"I wish we had just about two of them cartridges
that's layin' in that cache of ourn," said the second
man.

* COFYXIGIIT, X905, BY ThB S. S. McClTJRB COMPANY.

3

4 LOVE OF LIFE

His voice was utterly and drearily expressionless.
He spoke without enthusiasm; and the first man^
limping into the milky stream that foamed over the
rocks, vouchsafed no reply.

The other man followed at his heels. They did
not remove their foot-gear, though the water was
icy cold — so cold that their ankles ached and their
feet went numb. In places the water dashed against
their knees, and both men staggered for footing.

The man who followed slipped on 9 smooth
boulder, nearly fell, but recovered himself with a
violent effort, at the same time uttering a sharp
exclamation of pain. He seemed faint and dizzy
and put out his free hand while he reeled, as though
seeking support against the air. When he had
steadied himself he stepped forward, but reeled
again and nearly fell. Then he stood still and
looked at the other man, who had never turned his
head.

The man stood still for fully a minute, as though
debating with himself. Then he called out:

"I say. Bill, IVe sprained my ankle."

Bill staggered on through the milky water. He
did not look around. The man watched him go.

LOVE OF LIFE 5

and though his face was expressionless as ever, his
eyes were like the eyes of a wounded deer.

The other man limped up the farther bank and
continued straight on without looking back. The
man in the stream watched him. His lips trembled
a little, so that the rough thatch of brown hair which
covered them was visibly agitated. His tongue even
strayed out to moisten them.

"Bill!" he cried out.

It was the pleading cry of a strong man in distress,
but Bill's head did not turn. The man watched
him go, limping grotesquely and lurching forward
with stammering gait up the slow slope toward the
soft sky-line of the low-lying hill. He watched him
go till he passed over the crest and disappeared.
Then he turned his gaze and slowly took in the
circle of the world that remained to him now that
Bill was gone.

Near the horizon the sun was smouldering dimly,
almost obscured by formless mists and vapors,
which gave an impression of mass and density with-
out outline or tangibility. The man pulled out his
watch, the while resting his weight on one leg. It
was four o'clock, and as the season was near the

6 LOVE OF LIFE

last of July or first of August, — he did not know
the precise date within a week or two, — he knew
that the sun roughly marked the northwest. He
looked to the south and knew that somewhere be-
yond those bleak hills lay the Great Bear Lake;
also, he knew that in that direction the Arctic Circle
cut its forbidding way across the Canadian Barrens.
This stream in which he stood was a feeder to the
Coppermine River, which in turn flowed north and
emptied into Coronation Gulf and the Arctic Ocean.
He had never been there, but he had seen it, once,
on a Hudson Bay Company chart.

Again his gaze completed the circle of the world
about him. It was not a heartening spectacle.
Everywhere was soft sky-line. The hills were all
low-lying. There were no trees, no shrubs, no
grasses — naught but a tremendous and terrible
desolation that sent fear swiftly dawning into his
eyes.
"Bill!" he whispered, once and twice; "Bill!"
He cowered in the midst of the milky water, as
though the vastness were pressing in upon him with
overwhelming force, brutally crushing him with its
complacent awfulness. He began to shake as with

LOVE OF LIFE 7

an ague-fit, till the gun fell from his hand with a
splash. This served to rouse him. He fought with
his fear and pulled himself together, groping in the
water and recovering the weapon. He hitched his
pack farther over on his left shoulder, so as to take
a portion of its weight from off the injured ankle.
Then he proceeded, slowly and carefully, wincing
with pain, to the bank.

He did not stop. With a desperation that was
madness, unmindful of the pain, he hurried up the
slope to the crest of the hill over which his comrade
had disappeared — more grotesque and comical by
far than that limping, jerking comrade. But at the
crest he saw a shallow valley, empty of life. He
fought with his fear again, overcame it, hitched the
pack still farther over on his left shoulder, and
lurched on down the slope.

The bottom of the valley was soggy with water,
which the thick moss held, spongelike, close to the
surface. This water squirted put from under his
feet at every step, and each time he lifted a foot
the action culminated in a sucking sound as the
wet moss reluctantly released its grip. He picked
his way from muskeg to muskeg, and followed the

8 LOVE OF LIFE

other man's footsteps along and across the rocky
ledges which thrust like islets through the sea of
moss.

Though alone, he was not lost. Farther on he
knew he would come to where dead spruce and fir,
very small and weazened, bordered the shore of a
little lake, the titchin-nichilie^ in the tongue of the
country, the "land of little sticks.'* And into that
lake flowed a small stream, the water of which was
not milky. There was rush-grass on that stream —
this he remembered well — but no timber, and he
would follow it till its first trickle ceased at a divide.
He would cross this divide to the first trickle of an-
other stream, flowing to the west, which he would
follow until it emptied into the river Dease, and
here he would find a cache under an upturned
canoe and piled over with many rocks. And in
this cache would be ammunition for his empty gun,
fish-hooks and lines, a small net — all the utilities
for the killing and snaring of food. Also, he would
find flour> — not much, — a piece of bacon, and some
beans.

Bill would be waiting for him there, and they
would paddle away south down the Dease to the

LOVE OF LIFE 9

Great Bear Lake. And south across the lake they
would go, ever south, till they gained the Mackenzie.
And south, still south, they would go, while the
winter raced vainly after them, and the ice formed
in the eddies, and the days grew chill and crisp,
south to some warm Hudson Bay Q)mpany post,
where timber grew tall and generous and there was
grub without end.

These were the thoughts of the man as he strove
onward. But hard as he strove with his body, he
strove equally hard with his mind, trying to think
that Bill had not deserted him, that Bill would
surely wait for him at the cache. He was compelled
to think this thought, or else there would not be any
use to strive, and he would have lain down and died.
And as the dim ball of the sun sank slowly into the
northwest he covered every inch — and many times —
of his and Bill's flight south before the downcoming
winter. And he conned the grub of the cache and
the grub of the Hudson Bay G>mpany post over
and over again. He had not eaten for two days;
for a far longer time he had not had all he wanted
to eat. Often he stooped and picked pale muskeg
berries, put them into his mouth, and chewed and

lo LOVE OF LIFE

swallowed them. A muskeg berry Is a bit of seed
enclosed in a bit of water. In the mouth the water
melts away and the seed chews sharp and bitter.
The man knew there was no nourishment in the
berries, but he chewed them patiently with a hope
greater than knowledge and defying experience.

At nine o'clock he stubbed his toe on a rocky
ledge, and from sheer weariness and weakness
staggered and fell. He lay for some time, without
movement, on his side. Then he slipped out of the
pack-straps and clumsily dragged himself into a
sitting posture. It was not yet dark, and in the
lingering twilight he groped about among the rocks
for shreds of dry moss. When he had gathered a
heap he built a fire, — a smouldering, smudgy fire, —
and put a tin pot of water on to boil.

He unwrapped his pack and the first thing he
did was to count his matches. There were sixty-
seven. He counted them three times to make sure.
He divided them into several portions, wrapping
them in oil paper, disposing of one bunch in his
empty tobacco pouch, of another bunch in the
inside band of his battered hat, of a third bunch
under his shirt on the chest. This accomplished^

LOVE OF LIFE ii

a panic came upon him, and he unwrapped them all
and counted them again. There were still sixty-
seven.

He dried his wet foot-gear by the fire. The
moccasins were in soggy shreds. The blanket socks
were worn through in places, and his feet were raw
and bleeding. His ankle was throbbing^ and he
gave it an examination. It had swollen to the size
of his knee. He tore a long strip from one of his
two blankets and bound the ankle tightly. He tore
other strips and bound them about his feet to serve
for both moccasins and socks. Then he drank the
pot of water, steaming hot, wound his watch, and
crawled between his blankets.

He slept like a dead man. The brief darkness
around midnight came and went. The sun arose
in the northeast — at least the day dawned in that
quarter, for the sun was hidden by gray clouds.

At six o'clock he awoke, quietly lying on his
back. He gazed straight up into the gray sky and
knew that he was hungry. As he rolled over on his
elbow he was startled by a loud snort, and saw a
bull caribou regarding him with alert curiosity.
The animal was not more than fifty feet away, and

5

12 LOVE OF LIFE

instantly into the man's mind leaped the vision and
the savor of a caribou steak sizzling and frying over
a fire. Mechanically he reached for the empty gun,
drew a bead, and pulled the trigger. The bull
snorted and leaped away, his hoofs rattling and
clattering as he fled across the ledges.

The man cursed and flung the empty gun from
him. He groaned aloud as he started to drag him-
self to his feet. It was a slow and arduous task.
His joints were like rusty hinges. They worked
harshly in their sockets, with much friction, and
each bending or unbending was accomplished only
through a sheer exertion of will. When he finally
gained his feet, another minute or so was consumed
in straightening up, so that he could stand erect as
a man should stand.

He crawled up a small knoll and surveyed the
prospect. There were no trees, no bushes, nothing
but a gray sea of moss scarcely diversified by
gray rocks, gray lakelets, and gray streamlets.
The sky was gray. There was no sun nor hint of
sun. He had no idea of north, and he had for-
gotten the way he had come to this spot the night
before. But he was not lost. He knew that*

LOVE OF LIFE 13

Soon he would come to the land of the little sticks.
He felt that it lay off to the left somewhere, not far
— possibly just over the next low hill.

He went back to put his pack into shape for
travelling. He assured himself of the existence of
his three separate parcels of matches, though he
did not stop to count them. But he did linger,
debating, over a squat moose-hide sack. It was
not large. He could hide it under his two hands.
He knew that it weighed fifteen pounds, — as much
as all the rest of the pack, — and it worried him.
He finally set it to one side and proceeded to roll
the pack. He paused to gaze at the squat moose-
hide sack. He picked it up hastily with a defiant
glance about him, as though the desolation were
trying to rob him of it; and when he rose to his
feet to stagger on into the day, it was included in
the pack on his back.

He bore away to the left, stopping now and again
to eat muskeg berries. His ankle had stiffened, his
limp was more pronounced, but the pain of it was
as nothing compared with the pain of his stomach.
The hunger pangs were sharp. They gnawed and
gnawed until he could not keep his mind steady on

14 LOVE OF LIFE

the course he must pursue to gain the land of little
sticks. The muskeg berries did not allay this
gnawing, while they made his tongue and the roof
of his mouth sore with their irritating bite.

He came upon a valley where rock ptarmigan
rose on whirring wings from the ledges and muskegs.
Ker — ker — kerwas the cry they made. He threw
stones at them, but could not hit them. He placed
his pack on the ground and stalked them as a cat
stalks a sparrow. The sharp rocks cut through his
pants' legs till his knees left a trail of blood; but the
hurt was lost in the hurt of his hunger. He squirmed
over the wet moss, saturating his clothes and chilling
his body; but he was not aware of it, so great was
his fever for food. And always the ptarmigan rose,
whirring, before him, till their ker — ker — ker be-
came a mock to him, and he cursed them and cried
aloud at them with their own cry.

Once he crawled upon one that must have been
asleep. He did not see it till it shot up in his face
from its rocky nook. He made a clutch as startled
as was the rise of the ptarmigan, and there remained
in his hand three tail-feathers. As he watched its
flight he hated it, as though it had done him some

LOVE OF LIFE 15

terrible wrong. Then he returned and shouldered
his pack.

As the day wore along he came into valleys or
swales where game was more plentiful. A band
of caribou passed by, twenty and odd animals,
tantalizingly within rifle range. He felt a wild
desire to run after them, a certitude that he could
run them down. A black fox came toward him,
carrying a ptarmigan in his mouth. The man
shouted. It was a fearful cry, but the fox, leaping
away in fright, did not drop the ptarmigan.

Late in the afternoon he followed a stream, milky
with lime, which ran through sparse patches of rush-
grass. Grasping these rushes firmly near the root,
he pulled up what resembled a young onion-sprout
no larger than a shingle-nail. It was tender, and
his teeth sank into it with a crunch that promised
deliciously of food. But its fibers were tough. It
was composed of stringy filaments saturated with
water, like the berries, and devoid of nourishment.
He threw off his pack and went into the rush-
grass on hands and knees, crunching and munching,
like some bovine creature.

He was very weary and often wished to rest —

x6 LOVE OF LIFE

to lie down and sleep; but he was continually
<lriven on — not so much by his desire to gain the
land of little sticks as by his hunger. He searched
iittle ponds for frogs and dug up the earth with his
nails for worms, though he knew in spite that neither
frogs nor worms existed so far north.

He looked into every pool of water vainly, until,
as the long twilight came on, he discovered a solitary
fish, the size of a minnow, in such a pool. He
plunged his arm in up to the shoulder, but it eluded
him. He reached for it with both hands and stirred
up the milky mud at the bottom. In his excitement
he fell in, wetting himself to the waist. Then the
water was too muddy to admit of his seeing the
fish, and he was compelled to wait until the sedi-
ment had settled.

The pursuit was renewed, till the water was again
muddied. But he could not wait. He unstrapped
the tin bucket and began to bale the pool. He
baled wildly at first, splashing himself and flinging
the water so short a distance that it ran back into
the pool. He worked more carefully, striving to
be cool, though his heart was pounding against his
chest and his hands were trembling. At the end

LOVE OF LIFE 17

of half an hour the pool was nearly dry. Not a
cupful of water remained. And there was no fish.
He found a hidden crevice among the stones through
which it had escaped to the adjoining and larger
pool — a pool which he could not empty in a night
and a day. Had he known of the crevice, he could
have closed it with a rock at the beginning and the
fish would have been his.

Thus he thought, and crumpled up and sank
down upon the wet earth. At first he cried softly
to himself, then he cried loudly to the pitiless desola-
tion that ringed him around; and for a long time
after he was shaken by great dry sobs.

He built a fire and warmed himself by drinking
quarts of hot water, and made camp on a rocky
ledge in the same fashion he had the night before.
The last thing he did was to see that his matches
were dry and to wind his watch. The blankets
were wet and clammy. His ankle pulsed with pain.
But he knew only that he was hungry, and through
his restless sleep he dreamed of feasts and banquets
and of food served and spread in all imaginable ways.

He awoke chilled and sick. There was no sun.
The gray of earth and sky had become deeper.

i8 LOVE OF LIFE

more profound. A raw wind was blowing, and the
first flurries of snow were whitening the hilltops.
The air about him thickened and grew white while
he made a fire and boiled more water. It was wet
snow, half rain, and the flakes were large and soggy.
At first they melted as soon as they came in contact
with the earth, but ever more fell, covering the
ground, putting out the fire, spoiling his supply of
moss-fuel.

This was a signal for him to strap on his pack
and stumble onward, he knew not where. He was
not concerned with the land of little sticks, nor with
Bill and the cache under the upturned canoe by the
river Dease. He was mastered by the verb "to
eat." He was hunger-mad. He took no heed of
the course he pursued, so long as that course led
him through the swale bottoms. He felt his way
through the wet snow to the watery muskeg berries,
and went by feel as he pulled up the rush-grass by
the roots. But it was tasteless stufl^ and did not
satisfy. He found a weed that tasted sour and he
ate all he could find of it, which was not much, for
it was a creeping growth, easily hidden under the
several inches of snow.

LOVE OF LIFE 19

He had no fire that night, nor hot water, and
crawled under his blanket to sleep the broken
hunger-sleep. The snow turned into a cold rain.
He awakened many times to feel it falling on his
upturned face. Day came — a gray day and no
sun. It had ceased raining. The keenness of his
hunger had departed. Sensibility, as far as con-
cerned the yearning for food, had been exhausted.
There was a dull, heavy ache in his stomach, but it
did not bother him so much. He was more rational,
and once more he was chiefly interested in the land
of little sticks and the cache by the river Dease.

He ripped the remnant of one of his blankets
into strips and bound his bleeding feet. Also, he
recinched the injured ankle and prepared himself
for a day of travel. When he came to his pack, he
paused long over the squat moose-hide sack, but in
the end it went with him.

The snow had melted under the rain, and only
the hilltops showed white. The sun came out, and
he succeeded in locating the points of the compass,
though he knew now that he was lost. Perhaps,
in his previous days* wanderings, he had edged
away too far to the left. He now bore off to the

20 LOVE OF LIFE

right to counteract the possible deviation from his
true course.

Though the hunger pangs were no longer so
exquisite, he realized that he was weak. He was
compelled to pause for frequent rests, when he
attacked the muskeg berries and rush-grass patches.
His tongue felt dry and large, as though covered
with a fine hairy growth, and it tasted bitter in his
mouth. His heart gave him a great deal of trouble.
When he had travelled a few minutes it would begin
a remorseless thump, thump, thump, and then leap
up and away in a painful flutter of beats that choked
him and made him go faint and dizzy.

In the middle of the day he found two minnows
in a large pool. It was impossible to bale it, but
he was calmer now and managed to catch them in
his tin bucket. They were no longer than his little
finger, but he was not particularly hungry. The
dull ache in his stomach had been growing duller
and fainter. It seemed almost that his stomach
was dozing. He ate the fish raw, masticating with
painstaking care, for the eating was an act of pure
reason. While he had no desire to eat, he knew
that he must eat to live.

LOVE OF LIFE 21

In the evening he caught three more minnows,
eating two and saving the third for breakfast. The
sun had dried stray shreds of moss, and he was able
to warm himself with hot water. He had not
covered more than ten miles that day; and the next
day, travelling whenever his heart permitted him,
he covered no more than five miles. But his stomach
did not give him the slightest uneasiness. It had
gone to sleep. He was in a strange country, too,
and the caribou were growing more plentiful, also
the wolves. Often their yelps drifted across the
desolation, and once he saw three of them slinking
away before his path.

Another night; and in the morning, being more
rational, he untied the leather string that fastened
the squat moose-hide sack. From its open mouth
poured a yellow stream of coarse gold-dust and
nuggets. He roughly divided the gold in halves,
caching one half on a prominent ledge, wrapped in
a piece of blanket, and returning the other half to
the sack. He also began to use strips of the one
remaining blanket for his feet. He still clung to
his gun, for there were cartridges in that cache by
the river Dease.

22 LOVE OF LIFE

This was a day of fog, and this day hunger awoke
in him again. He was very weak and was afflicted
with a giddiness which at times blinded him. It
was no uncommon thing now for him to stumble
and fall; and stumbling once, he fell squarely into
a ptarmigan nest. There were four newly hatched
chicks, a day old — little specks of pulsating life no
more than a mouthful; and he ate them ravenously,
thrusting them alive into his mouth and crunching
them like egg-shells between his teeth. The mother
ptarmigan beat about him with great outcry. He
used his gun as a club with which to knock her
over, but she dodged out of reach. He threw
stones at her and with one chance shot broke a
wing. Then she fluttered away, running, trailing
the broken wing, with him in pursuit.

The little chicks had no more than whetted his
appetite. He hopped and bobbed clumsily along
on his injured ankle, throwing stones and screaming
hoarsely at times; at other times hopping and bob-
hing silently along, picking himself up grimly and
patiently when he fell, or rubbing his eyes with his
hand when the giddiness threatened to overpower
him.

LOVE OF LIFE 23

The chase led him across swampy ground in the
bottom of the valley, and he came upon footprints
in the soggy moss. They were not his own — he
could see that. They must be Bill's. But he could
not stop, for the nwther ptarmigan was running on.
He would catch her first, then he would return and
investigate.

He exhausted the mother ptarmigan; but he
exhausted himself. She lay panting on her side.
He lay panting on his side, a dozen feet away, un-
able to crawl to her. And as he recovered she re-
covered, fluttering out of reach as his hungry hand
went out to her. The chase was resumed. Night
settled down and she escaped. He stumbled from
weakness and pitched head foremost on his face,
cutting his cheek, his pack upon his back. He did
not move for a long while; then he rolled over on
his side, wound his watch, and lay there until
morning.

Another day of fog. Half of his last blanket had
gone into foot-wrappings. He failed to pick up
Bill's trail. It did not matter. His hunger was
driving him too compellingly — only — only he
wondered if Bill, too, were lost. By midday the

24 LOVE OF LIFE

irk of his pack became too oppressive. Again he
divided the gold, this time merely spilling half of
it on the ground. In the afternoon he threw the
rest of it away, there remaining to him only the
half-blanket, the tin bucket, and the rifle.

An hallucination began to trouble him. He felt
confident that one cartridge remained to him. It
was in the chamber of the rifle and he had overlooked
it. On the other hand, he knew all the time that
the chamber was empty. But the hallucination
persisted. He fought it off for hours, then threw
his rifle open and was confronted with emptiness.
The disappointment was as bitter as though he had
really expected to find the cartridge.

He plodded on for half an hour, when the hal-
lucination arose again. Again he fought it, and still
it persisted, till for very relief he opened his rifle
to unconvince himself. At times his mind wan-
dered farther afield, and he plodded on, a mere
automaton, strange conceits and whimsicalities gnaw-
ing at his brain like worms. But these excursions
out of the real were of brief duration, for ever the
pangs of the hunger-bite called him back. He
was jerked back abruptly once from such an excur-

LOVE OF LIFE 25

sion by a sight that caused him nearly to faint. He
reeled and swayed, doddering like a drunken man
to keep from falling. Before him stood a horse.
A horse! He could not believe his eyes. A thick
mist was in them, intershot with sparkling points
of light. He rubbed his eyes savagely to clear his;
vision, and beheld, not a horse, but a great brown
bear. The animal was studying him with bellicose
curiosity.

The man had brought his gun halfway to his
shoulder before he realized. He lowered it and drew
his hunting-knife from its beaded sheath at his hip^
Before him was meat and life. He ran his thumb
along the edge of his knife. It was sharp. The
point was sharp. He would fling himself upon the
bear and kill it. But his heart began its warning;
thump, thump, thump. Then followed the wild
upward leap and tattoo of flutters, the pressing as.
of an iron band about his forehead, the creeping of
the dizziness into his brain.

His desperate courage was evicted by a great
surge of fear. In his weakness, what if the animal
attacked him ? He drew himself up to his most im-
posing stature, gripping the knife and staring hard

26 LOVE OF LIFE

at the bear. The bear advanced clumsily a couple
of steps, reared up, and gave vent to a tentative
growl. If the man ran, he would run after him;
but the man did not run. He was animated now
with the courage of fear. He, too, growled, savagely,
terribly, voicing the fear that is to life germane and
that lies twisted about life's deepest roots.

The bear edged away to one side, growling men-
acingly, himself appalled by this mysterious creature
that appeared upright and unafraid. But the man
did not move. He stood like a statue till the danger
was past, when he yielded to a fit of trembling and
sank down into the wet moss.

He pulled himself together and went on, afraid
now in a new way. It was not the fear that he
should die passively from lack of food, but that he
should be destroyed violently before starvation had
exhausted the last particle of the endeavor in him
that made toward surviving. There were the
wolves. Back and forth across the desolation
drifted their howls, weaving the very air into a fabric
of menace that was so tangible that he found him-
self, arms in the air, pressing it back from him as
it might be the walls of a wind-blown tent.

LOVE OF LIFE 27

Now and again the wolves, in packs of two and
three, crossed his path. But they sheered clear of
him. They were not in sufficient numbers, and
besides they were hunting the caribou, which did
not battle, while this strange creature that walked
erect might scratch and bite.

In the late afternoon he came upon scattered
bones where the wolves had made a kill. The
debris had been a caribou calf an hour before,
squawking and running and very much alive. He
contemplated the bones, clean-picked and polished,
pink with the cell-life in them which had not yet
died. Could it possibly be that he might be that ere
the day was done ! Such was life, eh ? A vain and
fleeting thing. It was only life that pained. There
was no hurt in death. To die was to yleep. It
meant cessation, rest. Then why was he not content
to die ?

But he did not moralize long. He was squatting
In the moss, a bone in his mouth, sucking at the
shreds of life that still dyed it faintly pink. The
sweet meaty taste, thin and elusive almost as a
memory, maddened him. He closed his jaws on
the bones and crunched. Sometimes it was the

28 LOVE OF LIFE

bone that broke, sometimes his teeth. Then he
crushed the bones between rocks, pounded them
to a pulp, and swallowed them. He pounded his
fingers, too, in his haste, and yet found a moment
in which to feel surprise at the fact that his fingers
did not hurt much when caught under the descend-
ing rock.

Came frightful days of snow and rain. He did
not know when he made camp, when he broke
camp. He travelled in the night as much as in
the day. He rested wherever he fell, crawled on
whenever the dying life in him flickered up and
burned less dimly. He, as a man, no longer strove.
It was the life in him, unwilling to die, that drove
him on. He did not suffer. His nerves had be-
come blunted, numb, while his mind was filled with
weird visions and delicious dreams.

But ever he sucked and chewed on the crushed
bones of the caribou calf, the least renmants of
which he had gathered up and carried with him.
He crossed no more hills or divides, but auto-
matically followed a large stream which flowed
through a wide and shallow valley. He did not see
this stream nor this valley. He saw nothing save

LOVE OF LIFE 29

visions. Soul and body walked or crawled side by
side> yet apart, so slender was the thread that bound
them.

He awoke in his right mind, lying on his back on
a rocky ledge. The sun was shining bright and
warm. Afar off he heard the squawking of caribou
calves. He was aware of vague memories of rain
and wind and snow, but whether he had been beaten
by the storm for two days or two weeks he did not
know.

For some time he lay without movement, the
genial sunshine pouring upon him and saturating
his miserable body with its warmth. A fine day,
he thought. Perhaps he could manage to locate
himself. By a -painful effort he rolled over on his
side. Below him flowed a wide and sluggish river.
Its unfamiliarity puzzled him. Slowly he followed
it with his eyes, winding in wide sweeps among the
bleak, bare hills, bleaker and barer and lower-
lying than any hills he had yet encountered. Slowly,
deliberately, without excitement or more than the
most casual interest, he followed the course of
the strange stream toward the sky-line and saw it
emptying into a bright and shining sea. He was

30 LOVE OF LIFE

still unexcited. Most unusual, he thought, a vision
or a mirage — more likely a vision, a trick of his
disordered mind. He was confirmed in this by
sight of a ship lying at anchor in the midst of the
shining sea. He closed his eyes for a while, then
opened them. Strange how the vision persisted!
Yet not strange. He knew there were no seas or
ships in the heart of the barren lands, just as he had
known there was no cartridge in the empty rifle.

He heard a snuffle behind him — a half-choking
gasp or cough. Very slowly, because of his ex-
ceeding weakness and stiffness, he rolled over on
his other side. He could see nothing near at hand,
but he waited patiently. Again came the snuffle
and cough, and outlined between two jagged rocks
not a score of feet away he made out the gray head
of a wolf. The sharp ears were not pricked so
sharply as he had seen them on other wolves; the
eyes were bleared and bloodshot, the head seemed
to droop limply and forlornly. The animal blinked
continually in the sunshine. It seemed sick. As
he looked it snuffled and coughed again.

This, at least, was real, he thought, and turned
on the other side so that he might see the reality

LOVE OF LIFE 31

of the world which had been veiled from him before
by the vision. But the sea still shone in the distance
and the ship was plainly discernible. Was it reality,
after all ? He closed his eyes for a long while and
thought, and then it came to him. He had been
making north by east, away from the Dease Divide
and into the Coppermine Valley. This wide and
sluggish river was the Coppermine. That shining
sea was the Arctic Ocean. That ship was a whaler,
strayed east, far east, from the mouth of the Mac-
kenzie, and it was lying at anchor in Coronation
Gulf. He remembered the Hudson Bay Company
chart he had seen long ago, and it was all clear and
reasonable to him.

He sat up and turned his attention to immediate
affairs. He had worn through the blanket-wrap-
pings, and his feet were shapeless lumps of raw
meat. His last blanket was gone. Rifle and knife
were both missing. He had lost his hat somewhere,
with the bunch of matches in the band, but the
matches against his chest were safe and dry inside
the tobacco pouch and oil paper. He looked at
his watch. It marked eleven o'clock and was still
running. Evidently he had kept it wound.

32 LOVE OF LIFE

He was calm and collected. Though extremely
weak, he had no sensation of pain. He was not
hungry. The thought of food was not even pleas-
ant to him, and whatever he did was done by his
reason alone. He ripped oft his pants' legs to the
knees and bound them about his feet.' Somehow
he had succeeded in retaining the tin bucket. He
would have some hot water before he began what
he foresaw was to be a terrible journey to the ship.

His movements were slow. He shook as with a
palsy. When he started to collect dry moss, he
found he could not rise to his feet. He tried again
and again, then contented himself with crawling
about on hands and knees. Once he crawled near
to the sick wolf. The animal dragged itself re-
luctantly out of his way, licking its chops with a
tongue which seemed hardly to have the strength
to curl. The man noticed that the tongue was
not the customary healthy red. It was a yellowish
brown and seemed coated with a rough and half-
dry mucus.

After he had drunk a quart of hot water the man
found he was able to stand, and even to walk as
well as a dying man might be supposed to walk.

LOVE OF LIFE 33

Every minute or so he was compelled to rest. His
steps were feeble and uncertain, just as the wolTs
that trailed him were feeble and uncertain; and
that jrfight, when the shining sea was blotted out by
bhrckness, he knew he was nearer to it by no more
tnan four miles.

Throughout the night he heard the cough of the
sick wolf, and now and then the squawking of the
caribou calves. There was life all around him, but
it was strong life, very much alive and well, and he
knew the sick wolf clung to the sick man's trail
in the hope that the man would die first. In the
morning, on opening his eyes, he beheld it re-
garding him with a wistful and hungry stare. It
stood crouched, with tail between its legs, like a
miserable and woe-begone dog. It shivered in the
chill morning wind, and grinned dispiritedly when
the man spoke to it in a voice that achieved no
more than a hoarse whisper.

The sun rose brightly, and all morning the man
tottered and fell toward the ship on the shining
sea. The weather was perfect. It was the brief
Indian Summer of the high latitudes. It might last
a week. To-morrow or next day it might be gone.

34 LOVE OF LIFE

In the afternoon the man came upon a trail. It
was of another man, who did not walk, but who
dragged himself on all fours. The man thought
it might be Bill, but he thought in a dull, unin-
terested way. He had no curiosity. In fact, sensa-
tion and emotion had left him. He was no longer
susceptible to pain. Stomach and nerves had gone
to sleep. Yet the life that was in him drove him
on. He was very weary, but it refused to die. It
was because it refused to die that he still ate muskeg
berries and minnows, drank his hot water, and kept
a wary eye on the sick wolf.

He followed the trail of the other man who dragged
himself along, and soon came to the end of it — a
few fresh-picked bones where the soggy moss was
marked by the foot-pads of many wolves. He saw
a squat moose-hide sack, mate to his own, which
had been torn by sharp teeth. He picked it up,
though its weight was almost too much for his feeble
fingers. Bill had carried it to the last. Ha! ha!
He would have the laugh on Bill. He would survive
and carry it to the ship in the shining sea. His
mirth was hoarse and ghastly, like a raven^s croak,
and the sick wolf joined him, howling lugubriously.

LOVE OF LIFE 35

The man ceased suddenly. How could he have
the laugh on Bill if that were Bill; if those bones>
so pinky-white and clean, were Bill ?

He turned away. Well, Bill had deserted him;
but he would not take the gold, nor would he suck
Bill's bones. Bill would have, though, had it been
the other way around, he mused as he staggered on.

He came to a pool of water. Stooping over in
quest of minnows, he jerked his head back as
though he had been stung. He had caught sight
of his reflected face. So horrible was it that sensi-
bility awoke long enough to be shocked. There
were three minnows in the pool, which was too
large to drain ; and after several ineffectual attempts
to catch them in the tin bucket he forbore. He was
afraid, because of his great weakness, that he might
fall in and drown. It was for this reason that he
did not trust himself to the river astride one of the
many drift-logs which lined its sand-spits.

That day he decreased the distance between him
and the ship by three miles; the next day by two
— for he was crawling now as Bill had crawled ;
and the end of the fifth day found the ship still
seven miles away and him unable to make even a

36 LOVE OF LIFE

mile a day. Still the Indian Summer held on/ and
he continued to crawl and faint, turn and turn about ;
and ever the sick wolf coughed and wheezed at his
heels. . His knees had become raw meat like his
feet, and though he padded them with the shirt
from his back it was a red track he left behind him
on the moss and stones. Once, glancing back, he
saw the wolf licking hungrily his bleeding trail, and
he saw sharply what his own end might be — unless
— unless he could get the wolf. Then began as
grim a tragedy of existence as was ever played —
a sick man that crawled, a sick wolf that limped,
two creatures dragging their dying carcasses across
the desolation and hunting each other's lives.

Had it been a well wolf, it would not have mattered
so much to the man; but the thought of going to
feed the maw of that loathsome and all but dead
thing was repugnant to him. He was finicky. His
mind had begun to wander again, and to be per-
plexed by hallucinations, while his lucid intervals
grew rarer and shorter.

He was awakened once from a faint by a wheeze
close in his ear. The wolf leaped lamely bz^ck,
losing its footing and falling in its weakness. It

LOVE OF LIFE 37

was ludicrous, but he was not amused. Nor was
he even afraid. He was too far gone for that.
But his mind was for the moment clear, and he
lay and considered. The ship was no more than
four miles away. He could see it quite distinctly
when he rubbed the mists out of his eyes, and he
could see the white sail of a small boat cutting the
water of the shining sea. But he could never crawl
those four miles. He knew that, and was very calm
in the knowledge. He knew that he could not crawl
half a mile. And yet he wanted to live. It was
unreasonable that he should die after all he had
undergone. Fate asked too much of him. And,
dying, he declined to die. It was stark madness,
perhaps, but in the very grip of Death he defied
Death and refused to die.

He closed his eyes and composed himself with
infinite precaution. He steeled himself to keep
above the suffocating languor that lapped like a
rising tide through all the wells of his being. It
was very like a sea, this deadly languor, that rose
and rose and drowned his consciousness bit by bit.
Sometimes he was all but submerged, swimming
through oblivion with a faltering stroke; and again.

38 LOVE OF LIFE

by some strange alchemy of soul, he would find an-
other shred of will and strike out more strongly.

Without movement he lay on his back, and he
could hear, slowly drawing near and nearer, the
wheezing intake and output of the sick wolfs breath.
It drew closer, ever closer, through an infinitude of
time, and he did not move. It was at his ear. The
harsh dry tongue grated like sandpaper against his
cheek. His hands shot out — or at least he willed
them to shoot out. The fingers were curved like
talons, but they closed on empty air. Sveiftness and
certitude require strength, and the man had not this
strength.

The patience of the wolf was terrible. The man's
patience was no less terrible. For half a day he
lay motionless, fighting off unconsciousness and
waiting for the thing that was to feed upon him
and upon which he wished to feed. Sometimes the
languid sea rose over him and he dreamed long
dreams;' but ever through it all, waking and dream-
ing, he waited for the wheezing breath and the
harsh caress of the tongue.

He did not hear the breath, and he slipped slowly
from some dream to the feel of the tongue along his

LOVE OF LIFE 39

hand. He waited. The fangs pressed softly; the
pressure increased; the wolf was exerting its last
strength in an effort to sink teeth in the food for
which it had waited so long. But the man had
waited long, and the lacerated hand closed on the
jaw. Slowly, while the wolf struggled feebly and
the hand clutched feebly, the other hand crept across
to a grip. Five minutes later the whole weight of
the man^s body was on top of the wolf. The hands
had not sufiicient strength to choke the wolf, but
the face of the man was pressed close to the
throat of the wolf and the mouth of the man
was full of hair. At the end of half an hour
the man was aware of a warm trickle in his
throat. It was not pleasant. It was like molten
lead being forced into his stomach, and it was
forced by his will alone. Later the man rolled
over on his back and slept.

There were some members of a scientific expedi-
tion on the whale-ship Bedford. From the deck
they remarked a strange object on the shore. It
was moving down the beach toward the water. They
were unable to classify it, and, being scientific men.

40 LOVE OF LIFE

they climbed into the whale-boat alongside and went
ashore to see. And they saw something that was
alive but which could hardly be called a man. It
was blind, unconscious. It squirmed along the
ground like some monstrous worm. Most of its
efforts were ineffectual, but it was persistent, and it
writhed and twisted and went ahead perhaps a score
of feet an hour.

Three weeks afterward the man lay in a bunk
on the whale-ship Bedford, and with tears streaming
down his wasted cheeks told who he was and
what he had undergone. He also babbled inco«
herently of his mother, of sunny Southern Cali-
fornia, and a home among the orange groves and
flowers.

The days were not many after that when he sat
at table with the scientific men and ship^s ofiicers.
He gloated over the spectacle of so much food,
watching it anxiously as it went into the mouths of
others. With the disappearance of each mouthful
an expression of deep regret came into his eyes.
He was quite sane, yet he hated those men at meal-
time. He was haunted by a fear that the food

LOVE OF LIFE 41

would not last. He inquired of the cook, the cabin*
boy, the captain, concerning the food stores. They
reassured him countless times; but he could not
believe them, and pried cunningly about the laza-
rette to see with his own eyes.

It was noticed that the man was getting fat. He
grew stouter with each day. The scientific men
shook their heads and theorized. They limited
the man at his meals, but still his girth increased
and he swelled prodigiously under his shirt.

The sailors grinned. They knew. And when
the sciendfic men set a watch on the man, they
knew too. They saw him slouch forward after
breakfast, and, like a mendicant, with outstretched
palm, accost a sailor. The sailor grinned and passed
him a fragment of sea biscuit. He clutched it
avariciously, looked at it as a miser looks at gold,
and thrust it into his shirt bosom. Similar were
the donations from other grinning sailors.

The scientific men were discreet. They let him
alone. But they privily examined his bunk. It
was lined with hardtack; the mattress was stuffed
with hardtack; every nook and cranny was filled
with hardtack. Yet he was sane. He was taking

42 LOVE OF LIFE

precautions against another possible famine — that
was all. He would recover from it, the scientific
men said; and he did, ere the BedfonTs anchor
rumbled down in San Francisco Bay.

A DAY'S LODGING

A DAY'S LODGING

It was the gosh-dangdest stampede I ever seen. A thou-
sand dog-teams hittin' the ice. You couldn't see 'm fer smoke.
Two white men an' a Swede froze to death that night, an*
there was a dozen busted their lungs. But didn't I see with
my own eyes the bottom of the water-hole? It was yellow
with gold like a mustard-plaster. That's why I staked the
Yukon for a minin' claim. That's what made the stampede.
An' then there was nothin' to it. That's what I said —
NOTHIN' to it An' I ain't got over guessin' yet. — Narra-
tive OF Shorty.

JOHN MESSNER clung with mittened hand
to the bucking gee-pole and held the sled in
the trail. With the other mittened hand he
nibbed his cheeks and nose. He rubbed his cheeks
and nose every little while. In point of fact, he
rarely ceased from rubbing them, and sometimes,
as their numbness increased, he rubbed fiercely.
His forehead was covered by the visor of his fur
cap, the flaps of which went over his ears. The
rest of his face was protected by a thick beard,
golden-brovm under its coating of frost.

4S

46 A DAY'S LODGING

Behind him churned a heavily loaded Yukon sled,
and before him toiled a string of five dogs. The
rope by which they dragged the sled rubbed against
the side of Messner^s leg. When the dogs swung
on a bend in the trail, he stepped over the rope.
There were many bends, and he was compelled to
step over it often. Sometimes he tripped on the
rope, or stumbled, and at all times he was awkward,
betraying a weariness so great that the sled now
and again ran upon his heels.

When he came to a straight piece of trail, where
the sled could get along for a moment without guid-
ance, he let go the gee-pole and batted his right
hand sharply upon the hard wood. He found it
difficult to keep up the circulation in that hand.
But while he pounded the one hand, he never ceased
from rubbing his nose and cheeks with the other.

"It's too cold to travel, anyway," he said. He
spoke aloud, after the manner of men who are much
by themselves. "Only a fool would travel at such
a temperature. If it isn't eighty below, it's because
it's seventy-nine."

He pulled out his watch, and after some fum-
bling got it back into the breast pocket of his thick

A DAY'S LODGING 47

woollen jacket. Then he surveyed the heavens and
ran his eye along the white sky-line to the south.

"Twelve o'clock," he mumbled, "A clear sky,
and no sun."

He plodded on silently for ten minutes, and then,
as though there had been no lapse in his speech,
he added:

"And no ground covered, and it's too cold to
travel."

Suddenly he yelled "Whoal" at the dogs, and
stopped. He seemed in a wild panic over his right
hand, and proceeded to hammer it furiously against
the gee-pole.

"You — poor — devils!" he addressed the dogs,
which had dropped down heavily on the ice to rest.
His was a broken, jerky utterance, caused by the
violence with which he hammered his numb hand
upon the wood. "What have you done anyway
that a two-legged other animal should come along,
break you to harness, curb all your natural pro-
clivities, and make slave-beasts out of you?"

He rubbed his nose, not reflectively, but savagely,
in order to drive the blood into it, and urged the dogs
to their work again. He travelled on the frozen

)

48 A DAY'S LODGING

surface of a great riven Behind him it stretched
away in a mighty curve of many miles, losing itself
in a fantastic jumble of mountains, snow-covered
and silent. Ahead of him the river split into many
channels to accommodate the freight of islands it
carried on its breast. These islands were silent
and white. No animals nor humming insects
broke the silence. No birds flew in the chill air.
There was no sound of man, no mark of the handi-
work of man. The world slept, and it was like
the sleep of death.

John Messner seemed succumbing to the apathy
of it all. The frost was benumbing his spirit. He
plodded on with bowed head, unobservant, mechani-
cally rubbing nose and cheeks, and batting his
steering hand against the gee-pole in the straight
trail-stretches.

But the dogs were observant, and suddenly they
stopped, turning their heads and looking back at
their master out of eyes that were wistful and
questioning. Their eyelashes were frosted white, as
were their muzzles, and they had all the seeming
of decrepit old age, what of the frost-rime and
exhaustion.

A DAY'S LODGING 49

The man was about to urge them on, when he
checked himself, roused up with an eiFort, and
looked around. The dogs had stopped beside a
water-hole, not a fissure, but a hole man-made,
chopped laboriously with an axe through three and
a half feet of ice. A thick skin of new ice showed
that it had not been used for some time. Messner
glanced about him. The dogs were already point-
ing the way, each wistful and hoary muzzle turned
toward the dim snow-path that left the main river
trail and climbed the bank of the island.

"All right, you sore-footed brutes,'* he said,
"ril investigate. You're not a bit more anxious
to quit than I am."

He climbed the bank and disappeared. The dogs
did not lie down, but on their feet eagerly waited
his return. He came back to them, took a hauling-
rope from the front of the sled, and put it around
his shoulders. Then he gee^d the dogs to the right
and put them at the bank on the run. It was a
stiff pull, but their weariness fell from them as they
crouched low to the snow, whining with eagerness
and gladness as they struggled upward to the last
ounce of effort in their bodies. When a dog slipped

50 A DAY'S LODGING

or faltered, the one behind nipped his hind quarters.
The man shouted encouragement and threats,
and threw all his weight on the hauling-rope.

They cleared the bank with a rush, swung to the
left, and dashed up to a small log cabin. It was a
deserted cabin of a single room, eight feet by ten
on the inside. Messner unharnessed the animals,
unloaded his sled and took possession. The last
chance wayfarer had left a supply of firewood.
Messner set up his light sheet-iron stove and started
a fire. He put five sun-cured salmon into the oven
to thaw out for the dogs, and from the water-hole
filled his cofFee-pot and cooking-pail.

While waiting for the water to boil, he held his face
over the stove. The moisture from his breath had
collected on his beard and frozen into a great mass
of ice, and this he proceeded tb thaw out. As it
melted and dropped upon the stove it sizzled and
rose about him in steam. He helped the process
with his fingers, working loose small ice-chunks
that fell rattling to the floor.

A wild outcry from the dogs without did not take
him from his task. He heard the wolfish snarling
and yelping of strange dogs and the soui|d|£|f voices*
A knock came on the door.

A DAY'S LODGING 51

"Come in," Messner called, in a voice muffled
because at the moment he was sucking loose a
fragment of ice from its anchorage on his upper
lip.

The door opened, and, gazing out of his cloud
of steam, he saw a man and a woman pausing on
the threshold.

"Come in," he said peremptorily, "and shut the
door!"

Peering through the steam, he could make out
but little of their personal appearance. The nose
and cheek strap worn by the woman and the trail-
wrappings about her head allowed only a pair of
black eyes to be seen. The man was dark-eyed
and smooth-shaven all except his mustache, which
was so iced up as to hide his mouth.

"We just wanted to know if there is any other
cabin around here," he said, at the same time glanc-
ing over the unfurnished state of the room. "We
thought this cabin was empty."

"It isn't my cabin," Messner answered. "I
just found it a few minutes ago. Come right in
and camp. Plenty of room, and you won't need
your stqve^.^ There's room for all."

52 A DAY'S LODGING

At the sound of his voice the woman peered at
him with quick curiousness.

"Get your things off," her companion said to her.
**ril unhitch and get the water so we can start
cooking/*

Messner took the thawed salmon outside and
fed his dogs. He had to guard them against the
second team of dogs, and when he had reentered
the cabin the other man had unpacked the sled
and fetched water. Messner's pot was boiHng.
He threw in the coffee, settled it with half a cup of
cold water, and took the pot from the stove. He
thawed some sour-dough biscuits in the oven, at
the same time heating a pot of beans he had boiled
the night before and that had ridden frozen on the
sled all morning.

Removing his utensils from the stove, so as to
give the newcomers a chance to cook, he proceeded
to take his meal from the top of his grub-box, himself
sitting on his bed-roll. Between mouthfuls he talked
trail and dogs with the man, who, with head over
the stove, was thawing the ice from his mustache.
There were two bunks in the cabin, and into one
of them, when he had cleared his lip, the stranger
tossed his bed-roll.

A DAY'S LODGING 53

"We'll sleep here," he said, "unless you prefer
this bunk. You're the first comer and you have
first choice, you know."

"That's all right," Messner answered. "One
bunk's just as good as the other."

He spread his own bedding in the second bunk,
and sat down on the edge. The stranger thrust a
physician's small travelling case under his blankets
at one end to serve for a pillow.

"Doctor?" Messner asked.

"Yes," came the answer, "but I assure you I
didn't come into the Klondike to practise."

The woman busied herself with cooking, while
the man sliced bacon and fired the stove. The
light in the cabin was dim, filtering through in a
small window made of onion-skin writing paper
and oiled with bacon grease, so that John Messner
could not make out very well what the woman looked
like. Not that he tried. He seemed to have no
interest in her. But she glanced curiously from
time to time into the dark comer where he sat.

"Oh, it's a great life," the doctor proclaimed
enthusiastically, pausing from sharpening his knife
on the stovepipe. "What I like about it is the

54 A DAY'S LODGING

struggle, the endeavor with one's own hands, the
primitiveness of it, the realness."

"The temperature is real enough,*' Messner
laughed.

"Do you know how cold it actually is ?" the doc-
tor demanded.

The other shook his head.

"Well, rU tell you. Seventy-four below zero by
spirit thermometer on the sled.''

"That's one hundred and six below freezing
point — too cold for travelling, eh?"

"Practically suicide," was the doctor's verdict.
"One exerts himself. He breathes heavily, taking
into his lungs the frost itself. It chills his lungs,
freezes the edges of the tissues. He gets a dry,
hacking cough as the dead tissue sloughs away,
and dies the following summer of pneumonia, won-
dering what it's all about. I'll stay in this cabin
for a week, unless the thermometer rises at least
to fifty below."

"I say, Tess," he said, the next moment, "don't
you think that coffee's boiled long enough!"

At the sound of the woman's name, John Mess-
ner became suddenly alert. He looked at her

A DAY'S LODGING 55

quickly, while across his face shot a haunting ex*
pression, the ghost of some buried misery achieving
swift resurrection. But the next moment, and by
an effort of will, the ghost was laid again. His
face was as placid as before, though he was still
alert, dissatisfied with what the feeble light had
shown him of the woman's face.

Automatically, her first act had been to set the
coffee-pot back. It was not until she had done this
that she glanced at Messner. But already he had
composed himself. She saw only a man sitting on
the edge of the bunk and incuriously studying the
toes of his moccasins. But, as she turned casually
to go about her cooking, he shot another swift look
at her, and she, glancing as swiftly back, caught his
look. He shifted on past her to the doctor, though
the slightest smile curled his lip in appreciation of
the way she had trapped him.

She drew a candle from the grub-box and lighted
it. One look at her illuminated face was enough
for Messner. In the small cabin the widest limit
was only a matter of several steps, and the next
moment she was alongside of him. She deliberately
held the candle close to his face and stared at him

56 A DAY'S LODGING

out of eyes wide with fear and recognition. He
smiled quietly back at her.

"What are you looking for, Tess?" the doctor
called.

"Hairpins," she replied, passing on and rummag-
ing in a clothes-bag on the bunk.

They served their meal on their grub-box, sitting
on Messner's grub-box and facing him. He had
stretched out on his bunk to rest, lying on his
side, his head on his arm. In the close quarters
it was as though the three were together at
table.

"What part of the States do you come from?**
Messner asked.

"San Francisco,'* answered the doctor. "Fve
been in here two years, though."

"I hail from California myself," was Mcssner's
announcement.

The woman looked at him appealingly, but he
smiled and went on:

"Berkeley, you know."

The other man was becoming interested.

"U. C?" he asked.

"Yes, Class of '86."

A DAY'S LODGING 57

"I meant faculty," the doctor explained, "You
remind me of the type."

"Sorry to hear you say so," Messner smiled back.
"Fd prefer being taken for a prospector or a dog-
musher."

"I don't think he looks any more like a professor
than you do a doctor," the woman broke in.

"Thank you," said Messner. Then, turning to
her companion, " By the way, Doctor, what is your
name, if I may ask ?"

"Haythome, if you'll take my word for it. I
gave up cards with civilization."

"And Mrs. Haythome," Messner smiled and
bowed.

She flashed a look at him that was more anger
than appeal.

Haythome was about to ask the other's name*
His mouth had opened to form the question when
Messner cut him off.

"Come to think of it. Doctor, you may possibly
be able to satisfy my curiosity. There was a sort
of scandal in faculty circles some two or three years
ago. The wife of one of the English professors —
er, if you will pardon me, Mrs. Haythome — dis-

S8 A DAY'S LODGING

appeared with some San Francisco doctor, I under-
stood, though his name does not just now come to
my lips. Do you remember the incident?"

Haythorne nodded his head. "Made quite a
stir at the time. His name was Womble — Graham
Womble. He had a magnificent practice. I knew
him somewhat."

"Well, what I was trying to get at was what had
become of them. I was wondering if you had
heard. They left no trace, hide nor hair."

"He covered his tracks cunningly." Haythorne
cleared his throat. "There was rumor that they
went to the South Seas — were lost on a trading
schooner in a typhoon, or something like that."

"I never heard that," Messner said. "You re-
aSiomber the case, Mrs. Haythorne?"

"Perfectly," she answered, in a voice the control
of which was in amazing contrast to the anger that
blazed in the face she turned aside so that Hay-
thorne might not see.

The latter was again on the verge of asking his
name, when Messner remarked:

"This Dr. Womble, IVe heard he was very
handsome, and — er — quite a success, so to say,
with the ladies."

A DAY'S LODGING 59

"Well, if he was, he finished himself off by that
affair," Haythome grumbled.

"And the woman was a termagant — at least
so Fve been told. It was generally accepted in
Berkeley that she made life — er — not exactly para-
dise for her husband."

"I never heard that," Haythome rejoined. "In
San Francisco the talk was all the other way."

"Woman sort of a martyr, eh? — crucified on
the cross of matrimony?"

The doctor nodded. Messner's gray eyes were
mildly curious as he went on :

"That was to be expected — two sides to the
shield. Living in Berkeley I only got the one side.
She was a great deal in San Francisco, it seems."
• "Some coffee, please," Haythome said.

The woman refilled his mug, at the same time
breaking into light laughter.

"You're gossiping like a pair of beldames," she
chided them.

"It's so interesting," Messner smiled at her, then
retumed to the doctor. "The husband seems then
to have had a not very savory reputation in San
Francisco?"

6o A DAY'S LODGING

"On the contrary, he was a moral prig," Hay-
thome blurted out, with apparently undue warmth.
"He was a little scholastic shrimp without a drop
of red blood in his body."

"Did you know him?"

"Never laid eyes on him. I never knocked about
in university circles."

"One side of the shield again," Messner said,
with an air of weighing the matter judicially,
"While he did not amount to much, it is true —
that is, physically — I'd hardly say he was as bad
as all that. He did take an active interest in stu-
dent athletics. And he had some talent. He once
wrote a Nativity play that brought him quite a bit
of local appreciation. I have heard, also, that he
was slated for the head of the English department,
only the affair happened and he resigned and went
away. It quite broke his career, or so it seemed.
At any rate, on our side the shield, it was^Considered
a knock-out blow to him. It was thought he cared
a great deal for his wife."

Haythome, finishing his mug of coffee, grunted
uninterestedly and lighted his pipe.

"It was fortunate they had no children," Mess-
ner continued.

A DAY'S LODGING 6i

But Haythorne, with a glance at the stove, pulled
on his cap and mittens.

"Fm going out to get some wood," he said.
"Then I can take off my moccasins and be com-
fortable/'

The door slammed behind him. For a long
minute there was silence. The man continued in
the same position on the bed. The woman sat on
the grub-box, facing him.

"What are you going to do?*' she asked abruptly.

Messner looked at her with lazy indecision.
"What do you think I ought to do? Nothing
scenic, I hope. You see I am stiff and trail-sore,
and this bunk is so restful.*'

She gnawed her lower lip and fumed dumbly.

"But — " she began vehemently, then clenched
her hands and stopped.

"I hope you don't want me to kill Mr. — er —
Haythorne," he said gently, almost pleadingly.
"It would be most distressing, and, I assure you,
really it is unnecessary."

"But you must do something," she cried.

"On the contrary, it is quite conceivable that I
do not have to do anything."

62 A DAY'S LODGING

"You would stay here?'*

He nodded.

She glanced desperately around the cabin and at
the bed unrolled on the other bunk. "Night is
coming on. You can't stop here. You can't!
I tell you, you simply can't!"

"Of course I can. I might remind you that I
found this cabin first and that you are my guests."

Again her eyes travelled around the room, and
the terror in them leaped up at sight of the other
bunk.

"Then we'll have to go," she announced de-
cisively.

" Impossible. You have a dry, hacking cough —
the sort Mr. — er — Haythome so aptly described.
You've already slightly chilled your lungs. Be-
sides, he is a physician and knows. He would never
permit it."

"Then what are you going to do ?" she demanded
again, with a tense, quiet utterance that boded an
outbreak.

Messner regarded her in a way that was almost
paternal, what of the profundity of pity and patience
with which he contrived to suffuse it.

A DAY'S LODGING 63

"My dear Theresa, as I told you before, I don't
know. I really haven't thought about it."

"Oh! You drive me mad!'* She sprang to
her feet, wringing her hands in impotent wrath.
"You never used to be this way."

"I used to be all softness and gentleness," he
nodded concurrence. "Was that why you left me ?"

"You are so different, so dreadfully calm. You
frighten me. I feel you have something terrible
planned all the while. But whatever you do, don't
do anything rash. Don't get excited — "

"I don't get excited any more," he interrupted.
"Not since you went away."

"You have improved — remarkably," she re-
torted.

He smiled acknowledgment. "While I am think-
ing about what I shall do, I'll tell you what
you will have to do — tell Mr. — er — Haythorne
who I am. It may make our stay in this cabin
more — may I say, sociable?"

"Why have you followed me into this frightful
country?" she asked irrelevantly.

" Don't think I came here looking for you, Theresa.
Your vanity shall not be tickled by any such mis-

64 A DAY'S LODGING

apprehension. Our meeting Is wholly fortuitous.
I broke with the life academic and I had to go
somewhere. To be honest, I came Into the Klon-
dike because I thought It the place you were least
liable to be In.'*

There was a fumbling at the latch, then the door
swung In and Haythorne entered with an armful
of firewood. At the first warning, Theresa began
casually to clear away the dishes. Haythorne went
out again after more wood.

"Why didn't you Introduce us ?'* Messner queried.

"ril tell him,'* she replied, with a toss of her head.
"Don't think Fm afraid.''

" I never knew you to be afraid, very much, of
anything."

"And I'm not afraid of confession, either," she
said, with softening face and voice.

"In your case, I fear, confession is exploitation
by Indirection, profit-making by ruse, self-aggrandize-
ment at the expense of God."

"Don't be literary," she pouted, with growing
tenderness. "I never did like epigrammatic dis-
cussion. Besides, I'm not afraid to ask you to
forgive me."

A DAY'S LODGING 65

** There is nothing to forgive, Theresa. I really
should thank you. True, at first I suffered; and
then, with all the graciousness of spring, it dawned
upon me that I was happy, very happy. It was a
most amazing discovery.**

"But what if I should return to you?'* she
asked.

" I should " (he looked at her whimsically) " be
greatly perturbed."

"I am your wife. You know you have never
got a divorce.**

"I see,** he meditated. "I have been careless.
It will be one of the first things I attend to.**

She came over to his side, resting her hand on
his arm. "You don't want me, John?** Her
voice was soft and caressing, her hand rested like
a lure. "If I told you I had made a mistake?
If I told you that I was very unhappy ? — and I am.
And I did make a mistake.**

Fear began to grow on Messner. He felt himself
wilting under the lightly laid hand. The situation
was slipping away from him, all his beautiful calm-
ness was going. She looked at him with melting
eyes, and he, too, seemed all dew and melting. He

tt A DAY'S LODGING

felt himself on the edge of an abyss, powerless to
withstand the force that was drawing him over.

^'I am coming back to you, John. I am coming
back to-day . . . now/'

As in a nightmare, he strove mider the hand.
While she talked, he seemed to hear, rippling softly,
the song of the Lorelei. It was as though, some-
where, a piano were playing and the actual notes
were impinging on his ear-drums.

Suddenly he sprang to his feet, thrust her from
him as her arms attempted to clasp him, and re-
treated backward to the door. He was in a panic.

**ril do something desperate!'* he cried.

" I warned you not to get excited." She laughed
mockingly, and went about washing the dishes.
"Nobody wants you. I was just playing with you.
I am happier where I am.'*

But Messner did not believe. He remembered
her facility in changing front. She had changed
front now. It was exploitation by indirection.
She was not happy with the other man. She had
discovered her mistake. The flame of his ego
flared up at the thought. She wanted to come
back to him, which was the one thing he did not

A DAY^S LODGING 67

want. Unwittingly, his hand rattled the door^
latch.

"Don't run zwzy,^* she laughed. "I won't bite
you/'

"I am not running away/' he replied with child-
like defiance, at the same time pulling on his mittens.
"I'm only going to get some water."

He gathered the empty pails and cooking pots
together and opened the door. He looked back at her.

"Don't forget you're to tell Mr. — er — Hay-
thome who I am."

Messner broke the skin that had formed on the
water-hole within the hour, and filled his pails.
But he did not return immediately to the cabin.
Leaving the pails standing in the trail, he walked
up and down, rapidly, to keep from freezing, for
the frost bit into the flesh like fire. His beard was
white with his frozen breath when the perplexed
and frowning brows relaxed and decision came into
his face. He had made up his mind to his course
of action, and his frigid lips and cheeks cracked
into a chuckle over it. The pails were already
skinned over with young ice when he picked them
up and made for the cabin.

68 A DAY'S LODGING

When he entered he found the other man wait-
ing, standing near the stove, a certain stiff awkward-
ness and indecision in his manner. Messner set
down his water-pails.

"Glad to meet you, Graham Womble," he said
in conventional tones, as though acknowledging an
introduction.

Messner did not offer his hand. Womble stirred
uneasily, feeling for the other the hatred one is
prone to feel for one he has wronged.

"And so you're the chap," Messner said in mar-
velling accents. "Well, well. You see, I really
am glad to meet you. I have been — er — curious
to know what Theresa found in you — where, I
may say, the attraction lay. Well, well."

And he looked the other up and down as a man
would look a horse up and down.

" I know how you must feel about me," Womble
began.

"Don't mention it," Messner broke in with ex-
aggerated cordiality of voice and manner. "Never
mind that. What I want to know is how do you
find her ? Up to expectations ? Has she worn
well? Life been all a happy dream ever since?"

A DAY'S LODGING 69

*' Don't be silly," Theresa interjected.

"I can't help being natural," Messner complained.

"You can be expedient at the same time, and
practical," Womble said sharply. "What we want
to know is what are you going to do ?"

Messner made a well-feigned gesture of helpless-
ness. "I really don't know. It is one of those
impossible situations against which there can be
no prevision."

"All three of us cannot remain the night in this
cabin."

Messner nodded affirmation.

"Then somebody must get out."

"That also is incontrovertible," Messner agreed.
^When three bodies cannot occupy the same space
at the same time, one must get out."

"And you're that one," Womble announced
grimly. "It's a ten-mile pull to the next camp,
but you can make it all right."

"And that's the first flaw in your reasoning,"
the other objected. "Why, necessarily, should I
be the one to get out i I found this cabin first."

"But Tess can't get out," Womble explained.
"Her lungs are already slightly chilled."

70 A DAY'S LODGING

''I agree with you. She can't venture ten mfles
of frost. By all means she must remain."

"Then it is as I said/* Womble announced with
finality.

Messner cleared his throat. "Your lungs, are
all right, aren't they ?"

"Yes, but what of it?''

Again the other cleared his throat and spoke with
painstaking and judicial slowness. "Why, I may
say, nothing of it, except, ah, according to your own
reasoning, there is nothing to prevent your getting
out, hitting the frost, so to speak, for a matter <^
ten miles. You can make it all right."

Womble looked with quick suspicion at Theresa
and caught in her eyes a glint of pleased surprise.

"Well?" he demanded of her.

She hesitated, and a surge of anger darkened his
face. He turned upon Messner.

" Enough of this. You can't stop here."

"Yes, I can."

" I won't let you." Womble squared his shoulders*^
"I'm running things."

"I'll stay anyway," the other persisted.

"I'll put you out."

A DAY'S LODGING 71

"ril come back/'

Womble stopped a moment to steady his voice
and control himself. Then he spoke slowly, in a
low, tense voice.

"Look here, Messner, if you refuse to get out,
rU thrash you. This isn't California. I'll beat
you to a jelly with my two fists."

Messner shrugged his shoulders. "If you do,
rU call a miners' meeting and see you strung up
to the nearest tree. As you said, this is not Cali-
fornia. They're a simple folk, these miners, and
all I'll have to do will be to show them the marks
of the beating, tell them the truth about you, and
present my claim for my wife."

The woman attempted to speak, but Womble
turned upon her fiercely.

"You keep out of this," he cried.

In marked contrast was Messner's "Please don't
intrude, Theresa."

What of her anger and pent feelings, her lungs
were irritated into the dry, hacking cough, and
with blood-suffused face and one hand clenched
against her chest, she waited for the paroxysm ts
pass.

72 A DAY'S LODGING

Womble looked gloomily at her, noting her
cough.

"Something must be done/* he said. "Yet her
lungs can^t stand the exposure. She can^t travel
till the temperature rises. And I'm not going to
give her up."

Messner hemmed, cleared his throat, and hemmed
again, semi-apologetically, and said, "I need some
money."

Contempt showed instantly in Womble's face.
At last, beneath him in vileness, had the other sunk
himself.

"YouVe got a fat sack of dust," Messner went
on. "I saw you unload it from the sled."

"How much do you want?" Womble demanded,
with a contempt in his voice equal to that in his
face.

"I made an estimate of the sack, and I — ah —
should say it weighed about twenty pounds. What
do you say we call it four thousand ? "

"But it's all Fve got, man!" Womble cried out.

"YouVe got her," the other said soothingly.
"She must be worth it. Think what I'm giving
up. Surely it is a reasonable price."

A DAY'S LODGING 73

"AH right/* Womble rushed across the floor
to the gold-sack. "Can't put this deal through
too quick for me, you — you little worm!'*

"Now, there you err,** was the smiling rejoinder.
"As a matter of ethics isn*t the man who gives a
bribe as bad as the man who takes a bribe ? The
receiver is as bad as the thief, you know; and you
needn't console yourself with any fictiuous moral
superiority concerning this little deal/*

"To hell with your ethics!** the other burst out.
"Come here and watch the weighing of this dust.
I might cheat you.**

And the woman, leaning against the bunk, raging
and impotent, watched herself weighed out in yellow
dust and nuggets in the scales erected on the grub-
box. The scales were small, making necessary
many weighings, and Messner with precise care
verified each weighing.

"There*s too much silver in it,** he remarked as
he ued up the gold-sack. "I don*t think it will
run quite sixteen to the ounce. You got a trifle the
better of me, Womble.**

He handled the sack lovingly, and with due appre-
ciadon of its preciousness carried it out to his sled.

74 A DAY'S LODGING

Returning, he gathered his pots and pans together,
packed his grub-box, and rolled up his bed. When
the sled was lashed and the complaining dogs har-
nessed, he returned into the cabin for his mittens.

"Good-by, Tess," he said, standing at the open
door.

She turned on him, struggling for speech but too
frantic to word the passion that burned in her.

"Good-by, Tess,** he repeated gently.

''Beast!'' she managed to articulate.

She turned and tottered to the bunk, flinging her-
self face down upon it, sobbing: "You beasts!
You beasts!"

John Messner closed the door softly behind him,
and, as he started the dogs, looked back at the cabin
with a great relief in his face. At the bottom of the
bank, beside the water-hole, he halted the sled. He
worked the sack of gold out between the lashings
and carried it to the water-hole. Already a new
skin of ice had formed. This he broke with his
fist. Untying the knotted mouth with his teeth,
he emptied the contents of the sack into the water.
The river was shallow at that point, and two feet
beneath the surface he could see the bottom dull-

A DAY'S LODGING 75

yellow in the fading light. At the sight of it, he spat
into the hole.

He started the dogs along the Yukon trail. Whin-
ing spiritlessly, they were reluctant to work. Cling-
ing to the gee-pole with his right hand and with his
left rubbing cheeks and nose, he stumbled over the
rope as the dogs swung on a bend.

"Mush-on, you poor, sore-footed brutes!** he
cried. "That's it, mush-on T*

("

THE WHITE MAN'S WAY

THE WHITE MAN^S WAY

TO cook by your fire and to sleep imder
your roof for the night," I had announced
on entering old Ebbits's cabin ; and he had
looked at me blear-eyed and vacuous, while Zilla
had favored me with a sour face and a contemptuous
grunt. Zilla was his wife, and no more bitter-
tongued, implacable old squaw dwelt on the Yukon.
Nor would I have stopped there had my dogs been
less tired or had the rest of the village been inhabited.
But this cabin alone had I found occupied, and
in this cabin, perforce, I took my shelter.

Old Ebbits now and again pulled his tangled wks
together, and hints and sparkles of intelligence
came and went in his eyes. Several times during
the preparation of my supper he even essayed hos-
pitable inquiries about my health, the condition
and number of my dogs, and the distance I had
travelled that day. And each time Zilla had looked
sourer than ever and grunted more contemptuously^

79

8o THE WHITE MAN'S WAY

Yet I confess that there was no particular call for
cheerfulness on their part. There they crouched
by the fire, the pair of them, at the end of their
days, old and withered and helpless, racked by
rheumatism, bitten by hunger, and tantalized by
the fiying-odors of my abundance of meat. They
rocked back and forth in a slow and hopeless way,
and regularly, once eveiy five minutes, Ebbits
emitted a low groan. It was not so much a groan
of pain, as of pain-weariness. He was oppressed by
the weight and the torment of this thing called life,
and still more was he oppressed by the fear of death.
His was that eternal tragedy of the aged, with whom
the joy of life has departed and the instinct for
death has not come.

When my moose-meat spluttered rowdily in the
fiying-pan, I noticed old Ebbits's nostrils twitch and
distend as he caught the food-scent. He ceased
rocking for a space and forgot to groan, while a
look of intelligence seemed to come into his face.

Zilla, on the other hand, rocked more rapidly,
and for the first time, in sharp little yelps, voiced
her pain. It came to me that their behavior was
like that of hungiy dogs, and in the fitness of things

THE WHITE MAN'S WAY 8i

I should not have been astonished had Zilla suddenly
developed a tail and thumped it on the floor in right
doggish fashion. Ebbits drooled a little and stopped
his rocking very frequently to lean forward and
thrust his tremulous nose nearer to the source of
gustatoty excitement.

When I passed them each a plate of the fried meat,
they ate greedily, making loud mouth-noises —
champings of worn teeth and sucking intakes of
the breath, accompanied by a continuous splutter-
ing and mumbling. After that, when I gave them
each a mug of scalding tea, the noises ceased. Ease-
ment and content came into their faces. Zilla re-
laxed her sour mouth long enough to sigh her satis-
faction. Neither rocked any more, and they seemed
to have fallen into placid meditation. Then a
dampness came into Ebbits's eyes, and I knew that
the sorrow of self-pity was his. The search re-
quired to find their pipes told plainly that they had
been without tobacco a long time, and the old man's
eagerness for the narcotic rendered him helpless,
so that I was compelled to light his pipe for
him.

"Why are you all alone in the village ?" I asked.

82 THE WHITE MAN'S WAY

"Is everybody dead ? Has there been a great sick-
ness? Are you alone left of the living?'*

Old Ebbits shook his head, saying: "Nay, there
has been no great sickness. The village has gone
away to hunt meat. We be too old, our legs are not
strong, nor can our backs cariy the burdens of
camp and trail. Wherefore we remain here and
wonder when the young men will return with meat."

"What if the young men do return with meat ?*'
Zilla demanded harshly.

"They may return with much meat," he quavered
hopefully.

"Even so, with much meat," she continued, more
harshly than before. "But of what worth to you
and me ? A few bones to gnaw in our toothless old
age. But the back-fat, the kidneys, and the tongues
— these shall go into other mouths than thine and
mine, old man."

Ebbits nodded his head and wept silently.

"There be no one to hunt meat for us," she cried,
turning fiercely upon me.

There was accusation in her manner, and I shrugged
my shoulders in token that I was not guilty of the
unknown crime imputed to me.

THE WHITE MAN'S WAY 83

"Know, O White Man, that it is because of thy
kind, because of all white men, that my man and I
have no meat in our old age and sit without tobacco
in the cold."

"Nay," Ebbits said gravely, with a stricter sense
of justice. "Wrong has been done us, it be true;
but the white men did not mean the wrong."

"Where be Moklan?" she demanded. "Where
be thy strong son, Moklan, and the fish he was ever
willing to bring that you might eat ?"

The old man shook his head.

"And where be Bidarshik, thy strong son ? Ever
was he a mighty hunter, and ever did he bring thee
the good back-fat and the sweet dried tongues of
the moose and the caribou. Tsee no back-fat and
no sweet dried tongues. Your stomach is full with
emptiness through the days, and it is for a man of
a very miserable and lying people to give you to eat."

"Nay," old Ebbits interposed in kindliness,
"the white man's is not a lying people. The white
man speaks true. Always does the white man speak
true." He paused, casting about him for words
wherewith to temper the severity of what he was
about to say. "But the white man speaks true in

84 THE WHITE MAN'S WAY

different ways. To-day he speaks true one way,
to-morrow he speaks true another way, and there
is no understanding him nor his way."

"To-day speak true one way, to-morrow speak
true another way, which is to lie," was Zilla's dictum.

"There is no understanding the white man," Ebbits
went on doggedly.

The meat, and the tea, and the tobacco seemed
to have brought him back to life, and he gripped
tighter hold of the idea behind his age-bleared eyes.
He straightened up somewhat. His voice lost its
querulous and whimpering note, and became strong
and positive. He turned upon me with dignity,
and addressed me as equal addresses equal.

"The white man's eyes are not shut," he began.
"The white man sees all things, and thinks greatly,
and is very wise. But the white man of one day is
not the white man of next day, and there is no under-
standing him. He does not do things always in
the same way. And what way his next way is to
be, one cannot know. Always does the Indian do
the one thing in the one way. Always does the
moose come down from the high mountains when
the winter is here. Always does the salmon come

THE WHITE MAN'S WAY 85

in the spring when the ice has gone out of the river.
Ahvays does everything do all things in the same
way, and the Indian knows and understands. But
the white man does not do all things in the same way,
and the Indian does not know nor understand.

"Tobacco be veiy good* It be food to the hungry
man. It makes the strong man stronger, and the
angry man to forget that he is angry. Also is
tobacco of value. It is of very great value. The
Indian gives one large salmon for one leaf of to-
bacco, and he chews the tobacco for a long time.
It is the juice of the tobacco that is good.
When it runs down his throat it makes him feel
good inside. But the white man ! When his mouth
is full with the juice, what does he do ? That juice,
that juice of great value, he spits it out in the snow
and it is lost. Does the white man like tobacco?
I do not know. But if he likes tobacco, why does
he spit out its value and lose it in the snow ? It is
a great foolishness and without understanding.'*

He ceased, puffed at the pipe, found that it was
out, and passed it over to Zilla, who took the sneer
at the white man off her lips in order to pucker
them about the pipe-stem. Ebbits seemed sinking

86 THE WHITE MAN'S WAY

back into his senility with the tale untold, and I
demanded :

"What of thy sons, Moklan and Bidarshik?
And why is it that you and your old woman are
without meat at the end of your years ?"

He roused himself as from sleep, and straightened
up with an effort.

"It is not good to steal," he said. "When the
dog takes your meat you beat the dog with a club.
Such is the law. It is the law the man gave to the
dog, and the dog must live to the law, else will it
suffer the pain of the club. When man takes your
meat, or your canoe, or your wife, you kill that man.
That is the law, and it is a good law. It is not good
to steal, wherefore it is the law that the man who
steals must die. Whoso breaks the law must suffer
hurt. It is a great hurt to die."

"But if you kill the man, why do you not kill
the dog?" I asked.

Old Ebbits looked at me in childlike wonder,
while Zilla sneered openly at the absurdity of my
question.

"It is the way of the white man," Ebbits mumbled
with an air of resignation.

THE WHITE MAN'S WAY 87

'^It is the foolishness of the white man/' snapped
ZiUa.

"Then let old Ebbits teach the white man wisdom/*
I said softly.

"The dog is not killed, because it must pull the
sled of the man. No man pulls another man's
sled, wherefore the man is killed."

"Oh,** I murmured.

"That is the law," old Ebbits went on. "Now
listen, O White Man, and I will tell you of a great
foolishness. There is an Indian. His name is
Mobits. From white man he steals two poundis of
flour. What does the white man do? Does he
beat Mobits? No. Does he kill Mobits? No.
What does he do to Mobits ? I will tell you, O
White Man. He has a house. He puts Mobits
in that house. The roof is good. The walls are
thick. He makes a fire that Mobits may be warm.
He gives Mobits plenty grub to eat. It is good
grub. Never in his all days does Mobits eat so
good grub. There is bacon, and bread, and beans
without end. Mobits have very good time.

"There is a big lock on door so that Mobits does
not run away. This also is a great foolishness.

88 THE WHITE MAN'S WAY

Mobits will not run away. All the time is there
plenty grub in that place, and warm blankets, and
a big fire. Very foolish to run away. Mobits is
not foolish. Three months Mobits stop in that
place. He steal two pounds of flour. For that,
white man take plenty good care of him. Mobits
eat many pounds of flour, many pounds of sugar,
of bacon, of beans without end. Also, Mobits drink
much tea. After three months white man open
door and tell Mobits he must go. Mobits does not
want to go. He is like dog that is fed long time in
one place. He want to stay in that place, and the
white man must drive Mobits away. So Mobits
come back to this village, and he is very fat. That
is the white man's way, and there is no understand-
ing it. It is a foolishness, a great foolishness."

**But thy sons?" I insisted. "Thy very strong
sons and thine old-age hunger?"

"There was Moklan," Ebbits began.

"A strong man," interrupted the mother. "He
could dip paddle all of a day and night and never
stop for the need of rest. He was wise in the way
of the salmon and in the way of the water. He was
very wise."

THE WHITE MAN'S WAY 89

"There was Moklan," Ebbits repeated, ignoring
the interruption. "In the spring, he went down
the Yukon with the young men to trade at Cam-
bell Fort. There is a post there, filled with the
goods of the white man, and a trader whose name
is Jones. Likewise is there a white man^s medicine
man, what you call missionary. Also is there bad
water at Cambell Fort, where the Yukon goes slim
like a maiden, and the water is fast, and the currents
rush this way and that and come together, and there
are whirls and sucks, and always are the currents
changing and the face of the water changing, so
at any two times it is never the same. Moklan is
my son, wherefore he is brave man — "

"Was not my father brave man ?'* Zilla demanded.

"Thy father w^s brave man," Ebbits acknowl-
edged, with the air of one who will keep peace in the
house at any cost. "Moklan is thy son and mine,
wherefore he is brave. Mayhap, because of thy
very brave father, Moklan is too brave. It is like
when too much water is put in the pot it spills over.
So too much braveiy is put into Moklan, and the
braveiy spills over.

"The young men are much afraid of the bad

go THE WHITE MAN'S WAY

water at Cambell Fort. But Moklan is not afraid.
He laughs strong. Ho I ho I and he goes forth into
the bad water. But where the currents come to-
gether the canoe is turned over. A whirl takes
Moklan by the legs, and he goes around and around,
and down and down, and is seen no more."

"Ai! ai!'* wailed Zilla. "Crafty and wise was
he, and my first-bom!'*

"I am the father of Moklan,*' Ebbits said, having
patiently given the woman space for her noise. "I
get into canoe and journey down to Cambell Fort
to collect the debt!*'

"Debt !" I interrupted. "What debt ?"

"The debt of Jones, who is chief trader,** came
the answer. "Such is the law of travel in a strange
country.**

I shook my head in token of my ignorance, and
Ebbits looked compassion at me, while Zilla snorted
her customary contempt.

"Look you, O White Man,** he said. "In thy
camp is a dog that bites. When the dog bites a
man, you give that man a present because you are
sorry and because it is thy dog. You make pay-
ment. Is it not so ? Also, if you have in thy countiy

THE WHITE MAN'S WAY 91

bad hunting, or bad water, you must make pay-
ment. It is just. It is the law. Did not my father's
brother go over into the Xanana Countiy and get
killed by a bear? And did not the Tanana tribe
pay my father many blankets and fine furs? It
was just. It was bad hunting, and the Tanana
people made payment for the bad hunting.

"So I, Ebbits, journeyed down to Cambell Fort
to collect the debt. Jones, who is chief trader,
looked at me, and he laughed. He made great
laughter, and would not give payment. I went to
the medicine-man, what you call missionary, and
had large talk about the bad water and the pay-
ment that should be mine. And the missionary
made talk about other things. He talk about where
Moklan has gone, now he is dead. There be large
fires in that place, and if missionary make true talk,
I know that Moklan will be cold no more. Also
the missionary talk about where I shall go when I
am dead. And he say bad things. He say that
I am blind. Which is a lie. He say that I am in
great darkness. Which is a lie. And I say that
the day come and the night come for everybody
just the same, and that in my village it is no more

92 THE WHITE MAN'S WAY

dark than at Cambell Fort. Also, I say that dark-
ness and light and where we go when we die be
different things from the matter of payment of just
debt for bad water. Then the missionary make
large anger, and call me bad names of darkness,
and tell me to go away. And so I come back from
Cambell Fort, and no payment has been made,
and Moklan is dead, and in my old age I am with-
out fish and meat.''

*^ Because of the white man,'' said Zilla.

"Because of the white man," Ebbits concurred.
*' And other things because of the white man. There
was Bidarshik. One way did the white man deal
with him; and yet another way for the same thing
did the white man deal with Yamikan. And first
must I tell you of Yamikan, who was a young man
of this village and who chanced to kill a white man.
It is not good to kill a man of another people. Al-
ways is there great trouble. It was not the fault
of Yamikan that he killed the white man. Yami-
kan spoke always soft words and ran away from
wrath as a dog from a stick. But this white man
drank much whiskey, and in the night-time came to
Yamikan's house and made much fight. Yamikan

THE WHITE MAN'S WAY 93

cannot run away, and the white man tries to kill
him. Yamikan does not like to die, so he kills the
white man.

"Then is all the village in great trouble. We are
much afraid that we must make large payment to
the white man's people, and we hide our blankets,
and our furs, and all our wealth, so that it will seem
that we are poor people and can make only small
payment. After long time white men come. They
are soldier white men, and they take Yamikan away
with them. His mother make great noise and throw
ashes in her hair, for she knows Yamikan is dead.
And all the village knows that Yamikan is dead,
and is glad that no payment is asked.

"That is in the spring when the ice has gone out
of the river. One year go by, two years go by. It
is spring-time again, and the ice has gone out of the
river. And then Yamikan, who is dead, comes
back to us, and he is not dead, but very fat, and we
know that he has slept warm and had plenty grub
to eat. He has much fine clothes and is all
the same white man, and he has gathered large
wisdom so that he is very quick head man in the
village.

94 THE WHITE MAN'S WAY

"And he has strange things to tell of the way of
the white man, for he has seen much of the white
man and done a great travel into the white man's
country. First place, soldier white men take him
down the river long way. All the way do they take
him down the river to the end, where it runs into a
lake which is larger than all the land and large as
the sky. I do not know the Yukon is so big river,
but Yamikan has seen with his own eyes. I do not
think there is a lake larger than all the land and
large as the sky, but Yamikan has seen. Also, he
has told me that the waters of this lake be salt, which
is a strange thing and beyond understanding.

"But the White Man knows all these marvels
for himself, so I shall not weary him with the telling
of them. Only will I tell him what happened to
Yamikan. The white man give Yamikan much
fine grub. All the time does Yamikan eat, and all
the time is there plenty more grub. The white
man lives under the sun, so said Yamikan, where
there be much warmth, and animals have only hair
and no fur, and the green things grow large and
strong and become flour, and beans, and potatoes.
And under the sun there is never famine. Always

THE WHITE MAN'S WAY 95

is there plenty grub. I do not know. Yamikan
has said.

"And here is a strange thing that befell Yamikan.
Never did the white man hurt him. Only did they
give him warm bed at night and plenty fine grub.
They take him across the salt lake which is big as
the sky. He is on white man's fire-boat, what you
call steamboat, only he is on boat maybe twenty
times bigger than steamboat on Yukon. Also, it
is made of iron, this boat, and yet does it not sink.
This I do not understand, but Yamikan has said,
* I have journeyed far on the iron boat ; behold ! I
am still alive.* It is a white man's soldier-boat
with many soldier men upon it.

"After many sleeps of travel, a long, long time,
Yamikan comes to a land where there is no snow.
I cannot believe this. It is not in the nature of things
that when winter comes there shall be no snow.
But Yamikan has seen. Also haye I asked the white
men, and they have said yes, there is no snow in
that country. But I cannot believe, and now I ask
you if snow never come in that country. Also, I
would hear the name of that country. I have heard
the name before, but I would hear it again, if it

96 THE WHITE MAN'S WAY

be the same — thus will I know if I have heard lies
or true talk/*

Old Ebbits regarded me with a wistful face. He
would have the truth at any cost» though it was his
desire to retain his faith in the marvel he had never
seen.

"Yes/* I answered, "it is true talk that you have
heard. There is no snow in that country, and its
name is California.''

"Cal-ee-fom-ee-yeh/* he mumbled twice and
thrice, listening intently to the sound of the syllables
as they fell from his lips. He nodded his head in
confirmation. "Yes, it is the same country of
which Yamikan made talk.''

I recognized the adventure of Yamikan as one
likely to occur in the early days when Alaska first
passed into the possession of the United States.
Such a murder case, occurring before the instal-
ment of territorial law and officials, might well have
been taken down to the United States for trial before
a Federal court.

"When Yamikan is in this country where there
is no snow," old Ebbits continued, "he is taken to
large house where many men make much talk.

THE WHITE MAN'S WAY 97

Long time men talk. Also many questions do they
ask Yamikan. By and by they tell Yamikan he
have no more trouble. Yamikan does not under-
stand, for never has he had any trouble. All the
time have they given him warm place to sleep and
plenty grub.

"But after that they give him much better grub,
and they give him money, and they take him many
places in white man's country, and he see many
strange things which are beyond the understanding
of Ebbits, who is an old man and has not journeyed
far. After two years, Yamikan comes back to this
village, and he is head man, and very wise until
he dies.

"But before he dies, many times does he sit by
my fire and make talk of the strange things he has
seen. And Bidarshik, who is my son, sits by the
fire and listens ; and his eyes are very wide and large
because of the things he hears. One night, after
Yamikan has gone home, Bidarshik stands up, so,
very tall, and he strikes his chest with his fist, and
says, *When I am a man, I shall journey in far places,
even to the land where there is no snow, and see
things for myself/"

98 THE WHITE MAN'S WAY

"Always did Bidarshik journey in far places/'
Zilla interrupted proudly.

"It be true," Ebbits assented gravely. "And
always did he return to sit by the fire and hunger
for yet other and unknown far places."

"And always did he remember the salt lake as
big as the sky and the country under the sun where
there is no snow," quoth Zilla.

"And always did he say, 'When I have the full
strength of a man, I will go and see for myself if the
talk of Yamikan be true talk,* " said Ebbits.

" But there was no way to go to the white man's
country," said Zilla.

"Did he not go down to the salt lake that is big
as the sky?" Ebbits demanded.

"And there was no way for him across the salt
lake," said Zilla.

"Save in the white man's fire-boat which is of
iron and is bigger than twenty steamboats on the
Yukon," said Ebbits. He scowled at Zilla, whose
withered lips were again writhing into speech, and
compelled her to silence. "But the white man
would not let him cross the salt lake in the fire-
boat, and he returned to sit by the fire and hunger

THE WHITE MAN'S WAY 99

for the country under the sun where there is no

snow/'

"Yet on the salt lake had he seen the fire-boat of
iron that did not sink/' cried out Zilla the irrepres-
sible.

"Ay," said Ebbits, "and he saw that Yamikan
had made true talk of the things he had seen. But
there was no way for Bidarshik to journey to the
white man's land under the sun, and he grew sick
and weary like an old man and moved not away
from the fire. No longer did he go forth to kill
meat — "

"And no longer did he eat the meat placed before
him," Zilla broke in. "He would shake his head
and say, ^Only do I care to eat the grub of the white
man and grow fat after the manner of Yamikan.'"

"And he did not eat the meat," Ebbits went on.
"And the sickness of Bidarshik grew into a great
sickness until I thought he would die. It was not
a sickness of the body, but of the head. It was a
sickness of desire. I, Ebbits, who am his father,
make a great think. I have no more sons and I do
not want Bidarshik to die. It is a head-sickness,
and there is but one way to make it well. Bidar-

loo THE WHITE MAN'S WAY

shik must journey across the lake as large as the
sky to the land where there is no snow, else will he
die. I make a very great think, and then I see the
way for Bidarshik to go.

*^So, one night when he sits by the fire, veiy sick,
his head hanging down, I say, 'My son, I have
learned the way for you to go to the white man's,
land.' He looks at me, and his face is glad. 'Go,'
I say, 'even as Yamikan went.' But Bidarshik is
sick and does not understand. 'Go forth,' I say,
'and find a white man, and, even as Yamikan, do
you kill that white man. Then will the soldier
white men come and get you, and even as they took
Yamikan will they take you across the salt lake to
the white man's land. And then, even as Yamikan,
will you return very fat, your eyes full of the things
you have seen, your head filled with wisdom.'

"And Bidarshik stands up very quick, and his
hand is reaching out for his gun. 'Where do you
go ?' I ask. 'To kill the white man,' he says. And
I see that my words have been good in the ears of
Bidarshik and that he will grow well again. Also
do I know that my words have been wise.

"There is a white man come to this village. He

THE WHITE MAN'S WAY loi

does not seek after gold in the ground, nor after
furs in the forest. All the time does he seek after
bugs and flies. He does not eat the bugs and flies>
then why does he seek after them ? I do not know.
Only do I know that he is a funny white man. Also
does he seek after the eggs of birds. He does not
eat the eggs. All that is inside he takes out, and only
does he keep the shell. Eggshell is not good to
eat. Nor does he eat the eggshells, but puts them
away in soft boxes where they will not break. He
catch many small birds. But he does not eat the
birds. He takes only the skins and puts them away
in boxes. Also does he like bones. Bones are not
good to eat. And this strange white man likes
best the bones of long time ago which he digs out of
the ground.

"But he is not a fierce white man, and I know
he will die very easy; so I say to Bidarshik, *My son,
there is the white man for you to kill.* And Bidar-
shik says that my words be wise. So he goes to a
place he knows where are many bones in the ground.
He digs up very many of these bones and brings
them to the strange white man's camp. The white
man is made very glad. His face shines like the sun,

I02 THE WHITE MAN^S WAY

and he smiles with much gladness as he looks at
the bones. He bends his head over, so, to look well
at the bones, and then Bidarshik strikes him hard
on the head, with axe, once, so, and the strange white
man kicks and is dead.

"*Now,* I say to Bidarshik, *will the white soldier
men come and take you away to the land under the
sun, where you will eat much and grow fat.' Bidar-
shik is happy. Already has his sickness gone from
him, and he sits by the fire and waits for the coming
of the white soldier men.

**How was I to know the way of the white
man is never twice the same?*' the old man de-
manded, whirling upon me fiercely. "How was I
to know that what the white man does yesterday
he will not do to-day, and that what he does to-day
he will not do to-morrow?** Ebbits shook his
head sadly. "There is no understanding the white
man. Yesterday he takes Yamikan to the land
under the sun and makes him fat with much grub.
To-day he takes Bidarshik and — what does he
do with Bidarshik ? Let me tell you what he does
with Bidarshik.

"I, Ebbits, his father, will tell you. He takes

THE WHITE MAN'S WAY 103

Bidarshik to Cambell Fort, and he ties a rope around
his neck, so, and, when his feet are no more on the
ground, he dies."

"Ai! ai!" wailed Zilla. "And never does he
cross the lake large as the sky, nor see the land under
the sun where there is no snow."

"Wherefore," old Ebbits said with grave dignity,
"there be no one to hunt meat for me in my old
age, and I sit hungry by my fire and tell my story to
the White Man who has given me grub, and strong
tea, and tobacco for my pipe."

"Because of the lying and very miserable white
people," Zilla proclaimed shrilly.

"Nay," answered the old man with gentle posi-
tiveness. "Because of the way of the white man,
which is without understanding and never twice the

same.'*

THE STORY OF KEESH

THE STORY OF KEESH

KEESH lived long ago on the rim of the polar
sea, was head man of his village through many
and prosperous years, and died full of honors
with his name on the lips of men. So long ago did
he live that only the old men remember his name^
his name and the tale, which they got from the old
men before them, and which the old men to come
will tell to their children and their children's chil-
dren down to the end of time. And the winter
darkness, when the north gales make their long
sweep across the ice-pack, and the air is filled with
flying white, and no man may venture forth, is the
chosen time for the telling of how Keesh, from the
poorest igloo in the village, rose to power and place
over them all.

He was a bright boy, so the tale runs, healthy and
strong, and he had seen thirteen suns, in their way
of reckoning time. For each winter the sun leaves
the land in darkness, and the next year a new sua

107

io8 THE STORY OF KEESH

returns so that they may be warm again and look
upon one another's faces. The father of Keesh had
been a very brave man, but he had met his death
in a time of famine, when he sought to save the
lives of his people by taking the life of a great polar
bear. In his eagerness he came to close grapples
with the bear, and his bones were crushed ; but the
bear had much meat on him and the people were
saved. Keesh was his only son, and after that
Keesh lived alone with his mother. But the people
are prone to forget, and they forgot the deed of his
father; and he being but a boy, and his mother only
a woman, they, too, were swiftly forgotten, and ere
long came to live in the meanest of all the igloos.

It was at a council, one night, in the big igloo of
Klosh-Kwan, the chief, that Keesh showed the blood
that ran in his veins and the manhood that stiffened
his back. With the dignity of an elder, he rose to
his feet, and waited for silence amid the babble of
voices.

"It is true that meat be apportioned me and
mine,'* he said. " But it is ofttimes old and tough,
this meat, and, moreover, it has an unusual quantity
of bones."

THE STORY OF KEESH 109

The hunters, grizzled and gray, and lusty and
young, were aghast. The like had never been
known before. A child, that talked like a grown
man, and said harsh things to their very faces !

But steadily and with seriousness, Keesh went
on. " For that I know my father, Bok, was a great
hunter, I speak these words. It is said that Bok
brought home more meat than any of the two best
hunters, that with his own hands he attended to the
division of it, that with his own eyes he saw to it
that the least old woman and the last old man re-
ceived fair share."

"Na! Na!" the men cried. "Put the child
out!" "Send him off to bed!" "He is no man
that he should talk to men and graybeards!"

He waited calmly till the uproar died down.

"Thou hast a wife, Ugh-Gluk," he said, "and for
her dost thou speak. And thou, too, Massuk, a
mother also, and for them dost thou speak. My
mother has no one, save me; wherefore I speak.
As I say, though Bok be dead because he hunted
over-keenly, it is just that I, who am his son, and
that Ikeega, who is my mother and was his wife,
should have meat in plenty so long as there be meat

no THE STORY OF KEESH

in plenty in the tribe. I, Keesh, the son of Bok,
have spoken."

He sat down, his ears keenly alert to the flood of
protest and indignation his words had created.

"That a boy should speak in council!*' old Ugh-
Gluk was mumbling.

"Shall the babes in arms tell us men the things
we shall do?" Massuk demanded in a loud voice.
"Am I a man that I should be made a mock by every
child that cries for meat ?"

The anger boiled a white heat. They ordered
him to bed, threatened that he should have no meat
at all, and promised him sore beatings for his pre-
sumption. Keesh's eyes began to flash, and the
blood to pound darkly under his skin. In the
midst of the abuse he sprang to his feet.

"Hear me, ye men!" he cried. "Never shall I
speak in the council again, never again till the men
come to me and say, ^It is well, Keesh, that thou
shouldst speak, it is well and it is our wish.' Take
this now, ye men, for my last word. Bok, my
father, was a great hunter. I, too, his son, shall go
and hunt the meat that I eat. And be it known,
now, that the division of that which I kill shall be

THE STORY OF KEESH iii

fair. And no widow nor weak one shall cry in the
night because there is no meat, when the strong men
are groaning in great pain for that they have eaten
overmuch. And in the days to come there shall be
shame upon the strong men who have eaten over-
much. I, Keesh, have said it!"

Jeers and scornful laughter followed him out of
the igloo, but his jaw was set and he went his way,
looking neither to right nor left.

The next day he went forth along the shore-line
where the ice and the land met together. Those
who saw him go noted that he carried his bow,
with a goodly supply of bone-barbed arrows, and
that across his shoulder was his father's big hunt-
ing-spear. And there was laughter, and much talk,
at the event. It was an unprecedented occurrence.
Never did boys of his tender age go forth to hunt,
much less to hunt alone. Also were there shaking
of heads and prophetic mutterings, and the women
looked pityingly at Ikeega, and her face was grave
and sad.

"He will be back ere long," they said cheeringly.

"Let him go; it will teach him a lesson," the
hunters said. "And he will come back shortly, and

112 THE STORY OF KEESH

he will be meek and soft of speech in the days
to follow."

But a day passed, and a second, and on the third
a wild gale blew, and there was no Keesh. Ikeega
tore her hair and put soot of the seal-oil on her face
in token of her grief; and the women assailed the
men with bitter words in that they had mistreated
the boy and sent him to his death; and the men
made no answer, preparing to go in search of the
body when the storm abated.

Early next morning, however, Keesh strode into
the village. But he came not shamefacedly. Across
his shoulders he bore a burden of fresh-killed
meat. And there was importance in his step and
arrogance in his speech. »

" Go, ye men, with the dogs and sledges, and take
my trail for the better part of a day's travel," he
said. "There is much meat on the ice — a she-
bear and two half-grown cubs."

Ikeega was overcome with joy, but he received
her demonstrations in manlike fashion, saying:
"Come, Ikeega, let us eat. And after that I shall
sleep, for I am weary."

And he passed into their igloo and ate profoundly,
and after that slept for twenty running hours.

THE STORY OF KEESH 113

There was much doubt at first, much doubt and
discussion. The killing of a polar bear is very
dangerous, but thrice dangerous is it, and three
times thrice, to kill a mother bear with her cubs.
The men could not bring themselves to believe that
the boy Keesh, single-handed, had accomplished
so great a marvel. But the women spoke of the
fresh-killed meat he had brought on his back,
and this was an overwhelming argument against
their unbelief. So they finally departed, grumbling
greatly that in all probability, if the thing were so,
he had neglected to cut up the carcasses. Now in
the north it is very necessary that this should be done
as soon as a kill is made. If not, the meat freezes
so solidly as to turn the edge of the sharpest knife,
and a three-hundred-pound bear, frozen stiff, is
no easy thing to put upon a sled and haul over the
rough ice. But arrived at the spot, they found not
only the kill, which they had doubted, but that
Keesh had quartered the beasts in true hunter
fashion, and removed the entrails.

Thus began the mystery of Keesh, a mystery
that deepened and deepened with the passing of
the days. His very next trip he killed a young bear.

114 THE STORY OF KEESH

nearly full-grown, and on the trip following, a large
male bear and his mate. He was ordinarily gone
from three to four days, though it was nothing un-
usual for him to stay away a week at a time on the
ice-field. Always he declined company on these
expeditions, and the people marvelled. "How does
he do it?" they demanded of one another. "Never
does he take a dog with him, and dogs are of such
great help, too.*'

"Why dost thou hunt only bear?'* Klosh-Kwan
once ventured to ask him.

And Keesh made fitting answer. "It is well
known that there is more meat on the bear,*' he said.

But there was also talk of witchcraft in the village.
" He hunts with evil spirits," some of the people con-
tended, "wherefore his hunting is rewarded. How
else can it be, save that he hunts with evil spirits ?'*

"Mayhap they be not evil, but good, these spirits,"
others said. "It is known that his. father was a
mighty hunter. May not his father hunt with him
so that he may attain excellence and patience and
understanding ? Who knows ?"

None the less, his success continued, and the less
skilful hunters were often kept busy hauling in his

THE STORY OF KEESH 115

meat. And in the division of it he was just. As
his father had done before him, he saw to it that the
least old woman and the last old man received a
fair portion, keeping no more for himself than his
needs required. And because of this, and of his
merit as a hunter, he was looked upon with respect,
and even awe; and there was talk of making him
chief after old Klosh-Kwan. Because of the things
he had done, they looked for him to appear again
in the council, but he never came, and they were
ashamed to ask.

"I am minded to build me an iglooy^ he said one
day to Klosh-Kwan and a number of the hunters.
"It shall be a large igloo, wherein Ikeega and I can
dwell in comfort.''

"Ay," they nodded gravely.

"But I have no time. My business is hunting,
and it takes all my time. So it is but just that the
men and women of the village who eat my meat
should build me my igloo."

And the igloo was built accordingly, on a generous
scale which exceeded even the dwelling of Klosh-
Kwan. Keesh and his mother moved into it, and
it was the first prosperity she had enjoyed since the

ii6 THE STORY OF KEESH

death of Bok. Nor was material prosperity alone
hers, for, because of her wonderful son and the
position he had given her, she came to be looked upon
as the first woman in all the village ; and the women
were given to visiting her, to asking her advice, and
to quoting her wisdom when arguments arose among
themselves or with the men.

But it was the mystery of Keesh's marvellous
hunting that took chief place in all their minds.
And one day Ugh-Gluk taxed him with witchcraft
to his face.

"It is charged," Ugh-Gluk said ominously, "that
thou dealest with evil spirits, wherefore thy hunt-
ing is rewarded."

"Is not the meat good?" Keesh made answer.
"Has one in the village yet to fall sick from the
eating of it ? How dost thou know that witchcraft
be concerned ? Or dost thou guess, in the dark,
merely because of the envy that consumes thee?"

And Ugh-Gluk withdrew discomfited, the women
laughing at him as he walked away. But in the
council one night, after long deliberation, it was
determined to put spies on his track when he went
forth to hunt, so that his methods might be learned.

THE STORY OF KEESH 117

So, on his next trip, Bim and Bawn, two young men,
and of hunters the craftiest, followed after him,
taking care not to be seen. After five days they
returned, their eyes bulging and their tongues
a-tremble to tell what they had seen. The council
was hastily called in Klosh-Kwan's dwelling, and
Bim took up the tale.

"Brothers! As commanded, we journeyed on
the trail of Keesh, and cunningly we journeyed,
so that he might not know. And midway of the first
day he picked up with a great he-bear. It was a
very great bear."

"None greater,*' Bawn corroborated, and went
on himself. "Yet was the bear not inclined to
fight, for he turned away and made off slowly over
the ice. This we saw from the rocks of the shore,
and the bear came toward us, and after him came
Keesh, very much unafraid. And he shouted
harsh words after the bear, and waved his arms
about, and made much noise. Then did the bear
grow angry, and rise up on his hind legs, and growl.
But Keesh walked right up to the bear.*'

"Ay," Bim continued the story. "Right up to
the bear Keesh walked. And the bear took after

ii8 THE STORY OF KEESH

him, and Keesh ran away. But as he ran he dropped
a little round ball on the ice. And the bear stopped
and smelled of it, then swallowed it up. And
Keesh continued to run away and drop little round
balls, and the bear continued to swallow them up.'*

Exclamations and cries of doubt were being made,
and Ugh-Gluk expressed open unbelief.

"With our own eyes we saw it,** Bim affirmed.

And Bawn — "Ay, with our own eyes. And
this continued until the bear stood suddenly up-
right and cried aloud in pain, and thrashed his fore
paws madly about. And Keesh continued to make
off over the ice to a safe distance. But the bear
gave him no notice, being occupied with the mis-
fortune the little round balls had wrought within
him.**

"Ay, within him,** Bim interrupted. "For he
did claw at himself, and leap about over the ice like
a playful puppy, save from the way he growled and
squealed it was plain it was not play but pain.
Never did I see such a sight!**

"Nay, never was such a sight seen,** Bawn took
up the strain. "And furthermore, it was such a
large bear.**

THE STORY OF KEESH 119

"Witchcraft/' Ugh-Gluk suggested.

"I know not/* Bawn replied. "I tell only of
what my eyes beheld. And after a while the bear
grew weak and tired, for he was very heavy and he
had jumped about with exceeding violence, and
he went off along the shore-ice, shaking his head
slowly from side to side and sitting down ever and
again to squeal and cry. And Keesh followed after
the bear, and we followed after Keesh, and for that
day and three days more we followed. The bear
grew weak, and never ceased ciying from his pain.'*

" It was a charm ! " Ugh-Gluk exclaimed. " Surely
it was a charm!"

"It may well be."

And Bim relieved Bawn. " The bear wandered,
now this way and now that, doubling back and
forth and crossing his trail in circles, so that at the
end he was near where Keesh had first come upon
him. By this time he was quite sick, the bear,
and could crawl no farther, so Keesh came up
close and speared him to death."

"And then ?" Klosh-Kwan demanded.

"Then we left Keesh skinning the bear, and came
running that the news of the killing might be told/'

I20 THE STORY OF KEESH

And in the afternoon of that day the women
hauled in the meat of the bear while the men sat
in council assembled. When Keesh arrived a mes-
senger was sent to him, bidding him come to the
council. But he sent reply, saying that he was
hungry and tired; also that his igloo was large and
comfortable and could hold many men.

And curiosity was so strong on the men that the
whole council, Klosh-Kwan to the fore, rose up
and went to the igloo of Keesh. He was eating,
but he received them with respect and seated them
according to their rank. Ikeega was proud and em-
barrassed by turns, but Keesh was quite composed.

Klosh-Kwan recited the information brought by
Bim and Bawn, and at its close said in a stem voice :
" So explanation is wanted, O Keesh, of thy manner
of hunting. Is there witchcraft in it ?*'

Keesh looked up and smiled. "Nay, O Klosh-
Kwan. It is not for a boy to know aught of witches,
and of witches I know nothing. I have but devised
a means whereby I may kill the ice-bear with ease,
that is all. It be headcraft, not witchcraft.''

"And may any man ?"

"Any man.''

THE STORY OF KEESH 121

There was a long silence. The men looked in
one another's faces, and Keesh went on eating.

"And . . . and . . . and wilt thou tell us, O
Keesh ?" Klosh-Kwan finally asked in a tremulous
voice.

"Yea, I will tell thee." Keesh finished sucking
a marrow-bone and rose to his feet. "It is quite
simple. Behold!"

He picked up a thin strip of whalebone and
showed it to them. The ends were sharp as needle-
points. The strip he coiled carefully, till it dis-
appeared in his hand. Then, suddenly releasing
it, it sprang straight again. He picked up a piece
of blubber.

"So," he said, "one takes a small chunk of blub-
ber, thus, and thus makes it hollow. Then into
the hollow goes the whalebone, so, tightly coiled,
and another piece of blubber is fitted over the whale-
bone. After that it is put outside where it freezes
into a little round ball. The bear swallows the
little round ball, the blubber melts, the whalebone
with its sharp ends stands out straight, the bear
gets sick, and when the bear is very sick, why, you
kill him with a spean It is quite simple."

122 THE STORY OF KEESH

And Ugh-GIuk said "Oh!'' and Klosh-Kwan
said ''Ah!" And each said something after his
own manner, and all understood.

And this is the story of Keesh, who lived long ago
on the rim of the polar sea. Because he exercised
headcraft and not witchcraft, he rose from the
meanest igloo to be head man of his village, and
through all the years that he lived, it is related, his
tribe was prosperous, and neither widow nor weak
one cried aloud in the night because there was no
meat.

THE UNEXPECTED

THE UNEXPECTED

IT is a simple matter to see the obvious, to do
the expected. The tendency of the individual
life is to be static rather than dynamic, and
this tendency is made into a propulsion by civiliza-
tion, where the obvious only is seen, and the un-
expected rarely happens. When the unexpected
does happen, however, and when it is of sufficiently
grave import, the unfit perish. They do not see
what is not obvious, are unable to do the unexpected,
are incapable of adjusting their well-grooved lives
to other and strange grooves. In short, when they
come to the end of their own groove, they die.

On the other hand, there are those that make
toward survival, the fit individuals who escape from
the rule of the obvious and the expected and
adjust their lives to no matter what strange grooves
they may stray into, or into which they may be
forced. Such an individual was Edith Whittlesey.
She was bom in a rural district of England, where

125

126 THE UNEXPECTED

life proceeds by rule of thumb and the unexpected
is so very unexpected that when it happens it is
looked upon as an immorality. She went into
service early, and while yet a young woman,
by rule-of-thumb progression, she became a lady's
maid.

The effect of civilization is to impose human
law upon environment until it becomes machine-
like in its regularity. The objectionable is elimi-
nated, the inevitable is foreseen. One is not even
made wet by the rain nor cold by the frost; while
death, instead of stalking about grewsome and
accidental, becomes a prearranged pageant, moving
along a well-oiled groove to the family vault, where
the hinges are kept from rusting and the dust from
the air is swept continually away.

Such was the environment of Edith Whittlesey.
Nothing happened. It could scarcely be called a
happening, when, at the age of twenty-five, she
accompanied her mistress on a bit of travel to the
United States. The groove merely changed its
direction. It was still the same groove and well
oiled. It was a groove that bridged the Atlantic
with uneventfulness, so that the ship was not

THE UNEXPECTED 127

a ship in the midst of the sea, but a capacious, many-
corridored hotel that moved swiftly and placidly,
crushing the waves into submission with its colossal
bulk until the sea was a mill-pond, monotonous
with quietude. And at the other side the groove
continued on over the land — a well-disposed,
respectable groove that supplied hotels at every
stopping-place, and hotels on wheels between the
stopping-places.

In Chicago, while her mistress saw one side of
social life, Edith Whittlesey saw another side; and
when she left her lady's service and became Edith
Nelson, she betrayed, perhaps faintly, her ability to
grapple with the unexpected and to master it. Hans
Nelson, immigrant, Swede by birth and carpenter
by occupation, had in him that Teutonic unrest
that drives the race ever westward on its great
adventure. He was a large-muscled, stolid sort of
a man, in whom little imagination was coupled
with immense initiative, and who possessed, withal,
loyalty and affection as sturdy as his own strength.

"When I have worked hard and saved me some
money, I will go to Colorado," he had told Edith
on the day after their wedding. A year later they

128 THE UNEXPECTED

were in Colorado, where Hans Nelson saw his first
mining and caught the mining-fever himself. His
prospecting led him through the Dakotas, Idaho,
and eastern Oregon, and on into the mountains
of British G)lumbia. In camp and on trail, Edith
Nelson was always with him, sharing his luck, his
hardship, and his toil. The short step of the house-
reared woman she exchanged for the long stride of
the mountaineer. She learned to look upon danger
clear-eyed and with understanding, losing forever
that panic fear which is bred of ignorance and
which afflicts the city-reared, making them as silly
as silly horses, so that they await fate in frozen
horror instead of grappling with it, or stampede in
blind self-destroying terror which clutters the way
with their crushed carcasses.

Edith Nelson met the unexpected at every turn
of the trail, and she trained her vision so that she
saw in the landscape, not the obvious, but the
concealed. She, who had never cooked in her life,
learned to make bread without the mediation of
hops, yeast, or baking-powder, and to bake bread,
top and bottom, in a frying-pan before an open
fire. And when the last cup of flour was gone and

THE UNEXPECTED 129

the last rind of bacon, she was able to rise to the
occasion, and of moccasins and the softer-tanned
bits of leather in the outfit to make a grub-stake sub-
stitute that somehow held a man's soul in his body
and enabled him to stagger on. She learned to pack
a horse as well as a man, — a task to break the heart
and the pride of any city-dweller, and she knew
how to throw the hitch best suited far any particular
kind of pack. Also, she could build a fire of wet
wood in a downpour of rain and not lose her temper.
In short, in all its guises she mastered the unexpected.
But the Great Unexpected was yet to come into her
life and put its test upon her.

The gold-seeking tide was flooding northward
into Alaska, and it was inevitable that Hans Nelson
and his wife should be caught up by the stream
and swept toward, the Klondike. The fall of 1897
found them at Dyea, but without the money to
cany an outfit across Chilcoot Pass and float it
down to Dawson. So Hans Nelson worked at his
trade that winter and helped rear the mushroom
outfitting-town of Skaguay.

He was on the edge of things, and throughout
the winter he heard all Alaska calling to him.

Tjo THE UNEXPECTED

Latuya Bay called loudest, so that the summer of
1898 found him and his wife threading the mazes
of the broken coast-line in seventy-foot Siwash
canoes. With them were Indians, also three other
men. The Indians landed them and their supplies
in a lonely bight of land a hundred miles or so
beyond Latuya Bay, and returned to Skaguay; but
the three other men remained, for they were members
of the organized party. Each had put an equal
share of capital into the outfitting, and the profits
were to be divided equally. In that Edith Nelson
undertook to cook for the outfit, a man's share was
to be her portion.

First, spruce trees were cut down and a three-
room cabin constructed. To keep this cabin was
Edith Nelson's task. The task of the men was to
search for gold, which they did; and to find gold,
which they likewise did. It was not a startling
find, merely a low-pay placer where long hours of
severe toil earned each man between fifteen and
twenty dollars a day. The brief Alaskan summer
protracted itself beyond its usual length, and they
took advantage of the opportunity, delaying their
return to Skaguay to the last moment. And then

THE UNEXPECTED 131

it was too late. Arrangements had been made to
accompany the several dozen local Indians on their
fall trading trip down the coast. The Siwashes had
waited on the white people until the eleventh hour,
and then departed. There was no course left the
party but to wait for chance transportation. In
the meantime the claim was cleaned up and fire-
wood stocked in.

The Indian summer had dreamed on and on, ^
and then, suddenly, with the sharpness of bugles,
winter came. It came in a single night, and the
miners awoke to howling wind, driving snow, and
freezing water. Storm followed storm, and between
the storms there was the silence, broken only by
the boom of the surf on the desolate shore, where
the salt spray rimmed the beach with frozen
white.

All went well in the cabin. Their gold-dust
had weighed up something like eight thousand
dollars, and they could not but be contented. The
men made snowshoes, hunted fresh meat for the
larder, and in the long evenings played endless
games of whist and pedro. Now that the mining
had ceased, Edith Nelson turned over the fire-

132 THE XJNEXPECTED

building and the dish-washing to the men, while
she darned their socks and mended their clothes.

There was no grumbling, no bickering, nor petty
quarrelling in the little cabin, and they often con-
gratulated one another on the general happiness
of the party. Hans Nelson was stolid and easy-
going, while E^ith had long before won his un-
bounded admiration by her capacity for getting on
with people. Harkey, a long, lank Texan, was
unusually friendly for one with a saturnine disposi-
tion, and, as long as his theory that gold grew was
not challenged, was quite companionable. The
fourth member of the party, Michael Dennin, con-
tributed his Irish wit to the gayety of the cabin.
He was a large, powerful man, prone to sudden
rushes of anger over little things, and of unfailing
good-humor under the stress and strain of big
things. The fifth and last member, Dutchy, was
the willing butt of the party. He even went out of
his way to raise a laugh at his own expense in order
to keep things cheerful. His deliberate aim in life
seemed to be that of a maker of laughter. No
serious quarrel had ever vexed the serenity of the
party; and, now that each had sixteen hundred

THE UNEXPECTED 133

dollars to show for a short summer's work, there
reigned the well-fed, contented spirit of prosperity.

And then the unexpected happened. They had
just sat down to the breakfast table. Though it
was already eight o'clock (late breakfasts had
followed naturally upon cessation of the steady
work at mining) a candle in the neck of a bottle
lighted the meal. Edith and Hans sat at each end
of the table. On one side, with their backs to the
door, sat Harkey and Dutchy. The place on the
other side was vacant. Dennin had not yet come in.

Hans Nelson looked at the empty chair, shook
his head slowly, and, with a ponderous attempt at
humor, said; "Always is he first at the grub. It is
veiy strange. Maybe he is sick."

"Where is Michael?" Edith asked.

"Got up a little ahead of us and went outside,"
Harkey answered.

Dutchy's face beamed mischievously. He pre-
tended knowledge of Dennin's absence, and affected
a mysterious air, while they clamored for informa-
tion. Edith, after a peep into the men's bunk-
room, returned to the table. Hans looked at her,
and she shook her head.

134 THE UNEXPECTED

"He was never late at meal-time before," she
remarked.

"I cannot understand," said Hans. "Always
has he the great appetite like the horse.''

" It is too bad," Dutchy said, with a sad shake of
his head.

They were beginning to make merry over their
comrade's absence.

"It is a great pity!" Dutchy volunteered.

"What?" they demanded in chorus.

" Poor Michael," was the mournful reply.

"Well, what's wrong with Michael?" Harkey
asked.

"He is not hungry no more," wailed Dutchy.
"He has lost der appetite. He do not like der
grub."

"Not from the way he pitches into it up to his
ears," remarked Harkey.

"He does dot shust to be politeful to Mrs. '
Nelson," was Dutchy's quick retort. "I know, I
know, and it is too pad. Why is he not here ?
Pecause he haf gone out. Why haf he gone out ?
For der defelopment of der appetite. How does
he defelop der appetite? He walks barefoots in

THE UNEXPECTED 135

der snow. Ach! don't I know? It is der way
der rich peoples chases after der appetite when it
is no more and is running away. Michael haf
sixteen hundred dollars. He is rich peoples. He
haf no appetite. Derefore, pecause, he is chasing
der appetite. Shust you open der door und you will
see his barefoots in der snow. No, you will not see
der appetite. Dot is shust his trouble. When he
sees der appetite he will catch it und come to preak-
fast."

They burst into loud laughter at Dutchy's non-
sense. The sound had scarcely died away when
the door opened and Dennin came in. All turned
to look at him. He was carrying a shot-gun. Even
as they looked, he lifted it to his shoulder and fired
twice. At the first shot Dutchy sank upon the
table, overturning his mug of coffee, his yellow mop
of hair dabbling in his plate of mush. His fore-
head, which pressed upon the near edge of the plate,
tilted the plate up against his hair at an angle of
forty-five degrees. Harkey was in the air, in his
spring to his feet, at the second shot, and he pitched
face down upon the floor, his "My GodT* gurgling
and dying in his throat.

136 THE UNEXPECTED

It was the unexpected. Hans and Edith were
stunned. They sat at the table with bodies tense,
their eyes fixed in a fascinated gaze upon the mur-
derer. Dimly they saw him through the smoke of
the powder, and in the silence nothing was to be
heard save the drip-drip of Dutchy's spilled coffee
on the floor. Dennin threw open the breech of the
shot-gun, ejecting the empty shells. Holding the
gun with one hand, he reached with the other into
his pocket for fresh shells.

He was thrusting the shells into the gun when
Edith Nelson was aroused to action. It was patent
that he intended to kill Hans and her. For a space
of possibly three seconds of time she had been dazed
and paralyzed by the horrible and inconceivable
form in which the unexpected had made its ap-
pearance. Then she rose to it and grappled with
it. She grappled with it concretely, making a cat-
like leap for the murderer and gripping his neck-
cloth with both her hands. The impact of her body
sent him stumbling backward several steps. He
tried to shake her loose and still retain his hold on
the gun. This was awkward, for her firm-fleshed
body had become a cat's. She threw herself to one

THE UNEXPECTED 137

side, and with her grip at his throat nearly jerked
him to the floor. He straightened himself and
whirled swiftly. Still faithful to her hold, her body
followed the circle of his whirl so that her feet left
the floor, and she swung through the air fastened
to his throat by her hands. The whirl culminated
in a collision with a chair, and the man and woman
crashed to the floor in a wild struggling fall that
extended itself across half the length of the room.

Hans Nelson was half a second behind his wife
in rising to the unexpected. His nerve processes
and mental processes were slower than hers. His
was the grosser organism, and it had taken him half
a second longer to perceive, and determine, and
proceed to do. She had already flown at Dennin
and gripped his throat, when Hans sprang to his
feet. But her coolness was not his. He was in a
blind fury, a Berserker rage. At the instant he
sprang from his chair his mouth opened and there
issued forth a sound that was half roar, half bellow.
The whirl of the two bodies had already started,
and still roaring, or bellowing, he pursued this
whirl down the room, overtaking it when it fell to
the floor.

138 TBDE UNEXPECTED

Hans hurled himself i^xm the prostrate man,
striking mzdfy with his fists. Thqr were sledge-
like blowsy and when Edith fek Dennin's body
relax she loosed her grip and rolled dear. She lay
on the floor, panting and watching. The fury of
blows condnued to rain down. Dennin did not
seem to mind the blows. He did not even move.
Then k dawned upon her that he was unconscious.
She cried out to Hans to stop. She cried out again.
But he paid no heed to her voice. She caught him
by the arm, but her clinging to it merely impeded
his eflFort.

It was no reasoned impulse that sdrred her to do
what she then did. Nor was it a sense of pity, nor
obedience to the "Thou shalt not" of religion.
Rather was it some sense of law, an ethic of her
race and early environment, that compelled her to
interpose her body between her husband and the
helpless murderer. It was not until Hans knew he
was striking his wife that he ceased. He allowed
himself to be shoved away by her in much the same
way that a ferocious but obedient dog allows itself
to be shoved away by its master. The analogy went
even farther. Deep in his throat, in an animal*

THE UNEXPECTED 139

like way, Hans's rage still rumbled, and several
times he made as though to spring back upon his
prey and was only prevented by the woman's swiftly
interposed body.

Back and farther back Edith shoved her husband.
She had never seen him in such a condition, and she
was more frightened of him than she had been of
Dennin in the thick of the struggle. She could not
believe that this raging beast was her Hans, and
with a shock she became suddenly aware of a
shrinking, instinctive fear that he might snap her
hand in his teeth like any wild animal. For some
seconds, unwilling to hurt her, yet dogged in his
desire to return to the attack, Hans dodged back and
forth. But she resolutely dodged with him, until the
first glimmerings of reason returned and he gave over.

Both crawled to their feet. Hans staggered
back against the wall, where he leaned, his face
working, in his throat the deep and continuous
rumble that died away with the seconds and at last
ceased. The time for the reaction had come.
Edith stood in the middle of the floor, wringing her
hands, panting and gasping, her whole body trem-
bling violently.

140 THE UNEXPECTED

Hans looked at nothing, but Edith's eyes wandered
wildty from detail to detail of what had taken place.
Dennin lay without movement. The overturned
chair, hurled onward in the mad whirl, lay near
him. Partly under him lay the shot-gun, still
broken open at the breech. Spilling out of his
right hand were the two cartridges which he had
failed to put into the gun and which he had clutched
until consciousness left him. Harkey lay on the
floor, face downward, where he had fallen; while
Dutchy rested forward on the table, his yellow mop
of hair buried in his mush-plate, the plate itself
still tilted at an angle of forty-five degrees. This
tilted plate fascinated her. Why did it not fall
down ? It was ridiculous. It was not in the nature
of things for a mush-plate to up-end itself on the
table, even if a man or so had been killed.

She glanced back at Dennin, but her eyes re*
turned to the tilted plate. It was so ridiculous!
She felt a hysterical impulse to laugh. Then she
noticed the silence, and forgot the plate in a desire
for something to happen. The monotonous drip of
the coffee from the table to the floor merely empha-
sized the silence. Why did not Hans do something ?

THE UNEXPECTED 141

say something? She looked at him and was about
to speak, when she discovered that her tongue
refused its wonted duty. There was a peculiar
ache in her throat, and her mouth was dry and
furry. She could only look at Hans, who, in turn,
looked at her.

Suddenly the silence was broken by a sharp,
metallic clang. She screamed, jerking her eyes
back to the table. The plate had fallen down.
Hans sighed as though awakening from sleep. The
clang of the plate had aroused them to life in a new
world. The cabin epitomized the new world in
which they must thenceforth live and move. The
old cabin was gone forever. The horizon of life
was totally new and unfamiliar. The unexpected
had swept its wizardry over the face of things,
changing the perspective, juggling values, and
shuffling the real and the unreal into perplexing
confusion.

"My God, Hans!" was Edith's first speech.

He did not answer, but stared at her with horror.
Slowly his eyes wandered over the room, for the
first time taking in its details. Then he put on his
cap and started for the door.

142 THE UNEXPECTED

"Where are you going?" Edith demanded, in
an agony of apprehension.

His hand was on the door-knob, and he half
turned as he answered, "To dig some graves."

"Don't leave me, Hans, with — " her eyes swept
the room — "with this."

"The graves must be dug sometime," he said.

" But you do not know how many," she objected
desperately. She noted his indecision, and added,
"Besides, TU go with you and help."

Hans stepped back to the table and mechanically
snuffed the candle. Then between them they made
the examination. Both Harkey and Dutchy were
dead — frightfully dead, because of the close range
of the shot-gun. Hans refused to go near Dennin,
and Edith was forced to conduct this portion of
the investigation by herself.

"He isn't dead," she called to Hans.

He walked over and looked down at the murderer,

"What did you say?" Edith demanded, having
caught the rumble of inarticulate speech in her
husband's throat.

"I said it was a damn shame that he isn't dead,"
came the reply.

THE UNEXPECTED 143

Edith was bending over the body.

"Leave him alone," Hans commanded harshly,
in a strange voice.

She looked at him in sudden alarm. He had
picked up the shot-gun dropped by Dennin and
was thrusting in the shells.

"What are you going to do?** she cried, rising
swiftly from her bending position.

Hans did not answer, but she saw the shot-gun
going to his shoulder. She grasped the muzzle
with her hand and threw it up.

"Leave me alone!" he cried hoarsely.

He tried to jerk the weapon away from her, but she
came in closer and clung to him.

"Hans! Hans! Wake up!" she cried. "Don't
be crazy!"

"He killed Dutchy and Harkey!" was her hus-
band's reply; "and I am going to kill him."

"But that is wrong," she objected. "There is
the law."

He sneered his incredulity of the law's potency
in such a region, but he merely iterated, dispas-
sionately, doggedly, " He killed Dutchy and Harkey."

Long she argued it with him, but the argument

144 THE UNEXPECTED

was one-sided, for he contented himself with re-
peating again and again, "He killed Dutchy and
-Harkey/* But she could not escape from her
•childhood training nor from the blood that was in
her. The heritage of law was hers, and right
conduct, to her, was the fulfilment of the law.
She could see no other righteous course to pursue.
Hans's taking the law in his own hands was no more
justifiable than Dennin^s deed. Two wrongs did
not make a right, she contended, and there was
only one way to punish Dennin, and that was the
legal way arranged by society. At last Hans gave
in to her.

"All right," he said. "Have it your own way.
And to-morrow or next day look to see him kill
you and me.**

She shook her head and held out her hand for
the shot-gun. He started to hand it to her, then
hesitated.

"Better let me shoot him,** he pleaded.

Again she shook her head, and again he started
to pass her the gun, when the door opened, and an
Indian, without knocking, came in. A blast of
wind and flurry of snow came in with him. They

THE XJNEXPECTED 145

turned and faced him, Hans still holding the shot-
gun. The intruder took in the scene without a
quiver. His eyes embraced the dead and wounded
in a sweeping glance. No surprise showed in his
face, not even curiosity. Harkey lay at his feet,
but he took no notice of him. So far as he was
concerned, Harkey's body did not exist.

"Much wind," the Indian remarked by way of
salutation. "All well ? Very well ?"

Hans, still grasping the gun, felt sure that the
Indian attributed to him the mangled corpses. He
glanced appealingly at his wife.

"Good morning, Negook," she said, her voice
betraying her effort. "No, not very well. Much
trouble."

"Good-by, I go now, much hurry," the Indian
said, and without semblance of haste, with great
deliberation stepping clear of a red pool on the
floor, he opened the door and went out.

The man and woman looked at each other.

"He thinks we did it," Hans gasped, "that I did
it."

Edith was silent for a space. Then she said,
briefly, in a businesslike way:

146 THE UNEXPECTED

"Never mind what he thinks. That will come
after. At present we have two graves to dig. But
first of all, we've got to tie up Dennin so he can't
escape."

Hans refused to touch Dennin, but Edith lashed
him securely, hand and foot. Then she and Hans
went out into the snow. The ground was frozen.
It was impervious to a blow of the pick. They
first gathered wood, then scraped the snow away
and on the frozen surface built a fire. When the
fire had burned for an hour, several inches of dirt
had thawed. This they shovelled out, and then
built a fresh fire. Their descent into the earth
progressed at the rate of two or three inches an
hour.

It was hard and bitter work. The flurrying snow
did not permit the fire to butti any too well, while
the wind cut through their clothes and chilled their
bodies. They held but little conversation. The
wind interfered with speech. Beyond wondering
at what could have been Dennin's motive, they re-
mained silent, oppressed by the horror of the
tragedy. At one o'clock, looking toward the cabin,
Hans announced that he was hungry.

THE UNEXPECTED 147

"No, not now, Hans," Edith answered. "I
couldn't go back alone into that cabin the way it
is, and cook a meal/*

At two o'clock Hans volunteered to go with her;
but she held him to his work, and four o'clock found
the two graves completed. They were shallow, not
more than two feet deep, but they would serve the
purpose. Night had fallen. Hans got the sled,
and the two dead men were dragged through the
darkness and storm to their frozen sepulchre. The
funeral procession was anything but a pageant.
The sled sank deep into the drifted snow and pulled
hard. The man and the woman had eaten nothing
since the previous day, and were weak from hunger
and exhaustion. They had not the strength to
resist the wind, and at times its buffets hurled them
off their feet. On several occasions the sled was
overturned, and they were compelled to reload it
with its sombre freight. The last hundred feet to
the graves was up a steep slope, and this they took
on all fours, like sled-dogs, making legs of their
arms and thrusting their hands into the snow.
Even so, they were twice dragged backward by the
weight of the sled, and slid and fell down the hill.

148 THE XJNEXPECTED

the living and the dead, the haul-ropes and the sled,
in ghastly entanglement.

"To-morrow I will put up head-boards with
their names," Hans said, when the graves were
filled in.

Edith was sobbing. A few broken sentences had
been all she was capable of in the way of a funeral
service, and now her husband was compelled to
half-carry her back to the cabin.

Dennin was conscious. He had rolled over and
over on the floor in vain efforts to free himself.
He watched Hans and Edith with glittering eyes,
but made no attempt to speak. Hans still refused
to touch the murderer, and sullenly watched Edith
drag him across the floor to the men's bunk-room.
But try as she would, she could not lift him from
the floor into his bunk.

"Better let me shoot him, and we'll have no
more trouble," Hans said in final appeal.

Edith shook her head and bent again to her task.
To her surprise the body rose easily, and she knew
Hans had relented and was helping her. Then
came the cleansing of the kitchen. But the floor
still shrieked the tragedy, until Hans planed the

THE UNEXPECTED 149

surface of the stained wood away and with the
shavings made a fire in the stove.

The days came and went. There was much of
darkness and silence, broken only by the storms
and the thunder on the beach of the freezing surf.
Hans was obedient to Edith^s slightest order. All
his splendid initiative had vanished. She had
elected to deal with Dennin in her way, and so he
left the whole matter in her hands.

The murderer was a constant menace. At all
times there was the chance that he might free him-
self from his bonds, and they were compelled to
guard hini day and night. The man or the woman
sat always beside him, holding the loaded shot-gun.
At first, Edith tried eight-hour watches, but the
continuous strain was too great, and aftenvards
she and Hans relieved each other every four hours.
As they had to sleep, and as the watches extended
through the night, their whole waking time was
expended in guarding Dennin. They had barely
time left over for the preparation of meals and the
getting of firewood. • "»

Since Negook's inopportune visit, the Indians had
avoided the cabin. Edith sent Hans to their cabins

156 THE UNEXPECTED

to get them to take Dennin down the coast in a
canoe to the nearest white settlement or trading
post, but the errand was fruitless. Then Edith
went herself and interviewed Negook. He was
head man of the little village, keenly aware of his
responsibility, and he elucidated his policy thoroughly
in few words.

"It is white man's trouble," he said, "not Si-
wash trouble. My people help you, then will it be
Siwash trouble too. When white man's trouble and
Siwash trouble come together and make a trouble,
it is a great trouble, beyond understanding and
without end. Trouble no good. My people do no
wrong. What for they help you and have trouble ?"

So Edith Nelson went back to the terrible cabin
with its endless alternating four-hour watches.
Sometimes, when it was her turn and she sat by the
prisoner, the loaded shot-gun in her lap, her eyes
would close and she would doze. Always she
aroused with a start, snatching up the gun and
swiftly looking at him. These were distinct nervous
shocks, and their effect was not good on her. Such
was her fear of the man, that even though she were
wide awake, if he moved under the bedclothes she

THE UNEXPECTED 151

could not repress the start and the quick reach for
the gun.

She was preparing herself for a nervous break-
down, and she knew it. First came a fluttering of
the eyeballs, so that she was compelled to close her
eyes for relief. A little later the eyelids were
afflicted by a nervous twitching that she could not
control. To add to the strain, she could not forget
the tragedy. She remained as close to the horror
as on the first morning when the unexpected stalked
into the cabin and took possession. In her daily
ministrations upon the prisoner she was forced to
grit her teeth and steel herself, body and spirit.

Hans was affected differently. He became
obsessed by the idea that it was his duty to kill
Dennin; and whenever he waited upon the bound
man or watched by him, Edith was troubled by the
fear that Hans would add another red entry to the
cabin^s record. Always he cursed Dennin savagely
and handled him roughly. Hans tried to conceal
his homicidal mania, and he would say to his wife :
** By and by you will want me to kill him, and then
I will not kill him. It would make me sick.** But
more than once, stealing into the room, when it

152 THE UNEXPECTED

was her watch off, she would catch the two men
glaring ferociously at each other, wild animals the
pair of them, in Hans's face the lust to kill, in
Dennin*s the fierceness and savagery of the cornered
rat. "Hans!" she would cry, "wake up!" and
he would come to a recollection of himself, startled
and shamefaced and unrepentant.

So Hans became another factor in the problem
the unexpected had given Edith Nelson to solve.
At first it had been merely a question of right con-
duct in dealing with Dennin, and right conduct,
as she conceived it, lay in keeping him a prisoner
until he could be turned over for trial before a proper
tribunal. But now entered Hans, and she saw that
his sanity and his salvation were involved. Nor
was she long in discovering that her own strength
and endurance had become part of the problem.
She was breaking down under the strain. Her
left arm had developed involuntary jerkings and
twitchings. She spilled her food from her spoon,
and could place no reliance in her afflicted arm.
She judged it to be a form of St. Vitus's dance, and
she feared the extent to which its ravages might go.
What if she broke down ? And the vision she had

THE UNEXPECTED 153

of the possible future, when the cabin might contain
only Dennin and Hans, was an added horror.

After the third day, Dennin had begun to talk.
His first question had been, "What are you going
to do with me?" And this question he repeated
daily and many times a day. And always Edith
replied that he would assuredly be dealt with ac-
cording to law. In turn, she put a daily question
to him, — "Why did you do it ?" To this he never
replied. Also, he received the question with out-
bursts of anger, raging and straining at the rawhide
that bound him and threatening her with what he
would do when he got loose, which he said he was
sure to do sooner oy later. At such times she cocked
both triggers of the gun, prepared to meet him with
leaden death if he should burst loose, herself trem-
bling and palpitating and dizzy from the tension
and shock.

But in time Dennin grew more tractable. It
seemed to her that he was growing weary of his
unchanging recumbent position. He began to beg
and plead to be released. He made wild promises.
He would do them no harm. He would himself
go down the coast and give himself up to the officers

154 THE UNEXPECTED

of the law. He would give them his share of the
gold. He would go away into the heart of the
wilderness, and never again appear in civilization.
He would take his own life if she would only free
him. His pleadings usually culminated in in-
voluntary raving, until it seemed to her .that he was
passing into a fit; but always she shook her head
and denied him the freedom for which he worked
himself into a passion.

But the weeks went by, and he continued to
grow more tractable. And through it all the weari-
ness was asserting itself more and more. "I am
so tired, so tired," he would murmur, rolling his
head back and forth on the pillow like a peevish
child. At a little later period he began to make
impassioned pleas for death, to beg her to kill him,
to beg Hans to put him out of his misery so that he
might at least rest comfortably.

The situation was fast becoming impossible.
Edith's nervousness was increasing, and she knew
her break-down might come any time. She could
not even get her proper rest, for she was haunted
by the fear that Hans would yield to his mania and
kill Dennin while she slept. Though January had

THE UNEXPECTED 155

already come, months would have to elapse before
any trading schooner was even likely to put into
the bay. Also, they had not expected to winter in
the cabin, and the food was running low; nor could
Hans add to the supply by hunting. They were
chained to the cabin by the necessity of guarding
their prisoner.

Something must be done, and she knew it. She
forced herself to go back into a reconsideration of
the problem. She could not shake oflF the legacy
of her race, the law that was of her blood and that
had been trained into her. She knew that what-
ever she did she must do according to the law, and
in the long hours of watching, the shot-gun on her
knees, the murderer restless beside her and the
storms thundering without, she made original
sociological researches and worked out for herself
the evolution of the law. It came to her that the
law was nothing more than the judgment and the
will of any group of people. It mattered not how
large was the group of people. There were little
groups, she reasoned, like Switzerland, and there
were big groups like the United States. Also, she
reasoned, it did not matter how small was the

156 THE UNEXPECTED

group of people. There might be only ten thou-
sand people in a country, yet their collective judg-
ment and will would be the law of that country.
Why, then, could not one thousand people con-
stitute such a group ? she asked herself. And if
one thousand, why not one hundred? Why not
fifty ? Why not five ? Why not — two ?

She was frightened at her own conclusion, and
she talked it over with Hans. At first he could
not comprehend, and then, when he did, he added
convincing evidence. He spoke of miners* meet-
ings, where all the men of a locality came together
and made the law and executed the law. There
might be only ten or fifteen men altogether, he said,
but the will of the majority became the law for the
whole ten or fifteen, and whoever violated that will
was punished.

Edith saw her way clear at last. Dennin must
hang. Hans agreed with her. Between them they
constituted the majority of this particular group.
It was the group-will that Dennin should be hanged.
In the execution of this will Edith strove earnestly
to observe the customary forms, but the group was
so small that Hans and she had to serve as witnesses,

THE UNEXPECTED 157

as jury, and as judges — also as executioners.
She formally charged Michael Dennin with the
murder of Dutchy and Harkey, and the prisoner
lay in his bunk and listened to the testimony, first
of Hans, and then of Edith. He refused to plead
guilty or not guilty, and remained silent when she
asked him if he had an3rthing to say in his own
defence. She and Hans, without leaving their
seats, brought in the jury's verdict of guilty. Then,
as judge, she imposed the sentence. Her voice
shook, her eyelids twitched, her left arm jerked, but
she carried it out.

"Michael Dennin, in three days' time you are to
be hanged by the neck until you are dead.'*

Such was the sentence. The man breathed an
unconscious sigh of relief, then laughed defiantly,
and said, "Thin Vm thinkin' the damn bunk won't
be achin' me back anny more, an' that's a consola-

tion."

With the passing of the sentence a feeling of
relief seemed to communicate itself to all of them.
Especially was it noticeable in Dennin. All suUen-
ness and defiance disappeared, and he talked
sociably with his captors, and even with flashes of

iS8 THE UNEXPECTED

his old-rime wit. Also, he found great sarisfaction
in Edith's reading to him from the Bible. She read
from the New Testament, and he took keen interest
in the prodigal son and the thief on the cross.

On the day preceding that set for the execution,
when Edith. asked her usual question, "Why did
you do it?" Dennin answered, "'Tis very simple.
I was thinkin* — '*

But she hushed him abrupdy, asked him to wait,
and hurried to Hans's bedside. It was his watch
off, and he came out of his sleep, rubbing his eyes
and grumbling.

"Go," she told him, "and bring up Negook and
one other Indian. Michael's going to confess.
Make them come. Take the rifle along and bring
them up at the point of it if you have to."

Half an hour later Negook and his uncle, Hadik-
wan, were ushered into the death chamber. They
came unwillingly, Hans with his rifle herding them
along.

"Negook," Edith said, "there is to be no trouble
for you and your people. Only is it for you to sit
and do nothing but listen and understand."

Thus did Michael Dennin, under sentence of

THE UNEXPECTED 159

death, make public confession of his crime. As he
talked, Edith wrote his story down, while the
Indians listened, and Hans guarded the door for
fear the witnesses might bolt.

He had not been home to the old country for
fifteen years, Dennin explained, and it had always
been his intention to return with plenty of money
and make his old mother comfortable for the rest
of her days.

"An* how was I to be doin* it on sixteen hun-
dred?'* he demanded. "What I was after wantin*
was all the goold, the whole eight thousan*. Thin
I cud go back in style. What ud be aisier, thinks
I to myself, than to kill all iv yez, report it at Skaguay
for an Indian-killin*, an* thin pull out for Ireland ?
An* so I started in to kill all iv yez, but, as Harkey
was fond of sayin*, I cut out too large a chunk an* fell
down on the swallowin* iv it. An* that*s me con-
fession. I did me duty to the devil, an* now, God
willin*, rU do me duty to God.**

"Negook and Hadikwan, you have heard the
white man*s words,** Edith said to the Indians.
"His words are here on this paper, and it is for you
to make a sign, thus, on the paper, so that white

i6o THE UNEXPECTED

men to come after will know that you have
heard."

The two Siwashes put crosses opposite their
signatures, received a summons to appear on the
morrow with all their tribe for a further witnessing
of things, and were allowed to go.

Dennin's hands were released long enough for
him to sign the document. Then a silence fell in
the room. Hans was restless, and Edith felt un-
comfortable. Dennin lay on his back, staring
straight up at the moss-chinked roof.

"An* now Til do me duty to God," he murmured.
He turned his head toward Edith. "Read to me,"
he said, "from the book;" then added, with a glint
of playfulness, "Mayhap 'twill help me to forget
the bunk."

The day of the execution broke clear and cold.
The thermometer was down to twenty-five below
zero, and a chill wind was blowing which drove
the frost through clothes and flesh to the bones.
For the first time in many weeks Dennin stood
upon his feet. His muscles had remained inactive
so long, and he was so out of practice in maintaining
an erect position, that he could scarcely stand.

THE UNEXPECTED i6i

He reeled back and forth, staggered, and clutched
hold of Edith with his bound hands for support.

"Sure, an' it's dizzy I am," he laughed weakly.

A moment later he said, "An* it's glad I am that
it's over with. That damn bunk would iv been the
death iv me, I know."

When Edith put his fur cap on his head and
proceeded to pull the flaps down over his ears, he
laughed and said:

"What are you doin' that for?"

"It's freezing cold outside," she answered.

"An' in tin minutes' time what'U matter a frozen
ear or so to poor Michael Dennin?" he asked.

She had nerved herself for the last culminating
ordeal, and his remark was like a blow to her self-
possession. So far, everything had seemed phantom-
like, as in a dream, but the brutal truth of what
he had said shocked her eyes wide open to the reality
of what was taking place. Nor was her distress un-
noticed by the Irishman.

"I'm sorry to be troublin' you with me foolish
spache," he said regretfully. "I mint nothin' by
it. 'Tis a great day for Michael Dennin, an' he's
as gay as a lark."

i62 THE UNEXPECTED

He broke out in a merry whistle, which quickly
became lugubrious and ceased.

"Fm wishin' there was a priest," he said wist,
fully; then added swiftly, "But Michael Dennin's
too old a campaigner to miss the luxuries when he
hits the trail."

He was so very weak and unused to walking that
when the door opened and he passed outside, the
wind nearly carried him oflF his feet. Edith and
Hans walked on either side of him and supported
him, the while he cracked jokes and tried to keep
them cheerful, breaking oflF, once, long enough to
arrange the forwarding of his share of the gold to
his mother in Ireland.

They climbed a slight hill and came out into an
open space among the trees. Here, circled solemnly
about a barrel that stood on end in the snow, were
Negook and Hadikwan, and all the Siwashes down
to the babies and the dogs, come to see the way
of the white man's law. Near by was an open
grave which Hans had burned into the frozen
earth.

Dennin cast a practical eye over the preparations,
noting the grave, the barrel, the thickness of the

THE UNEXPECTED 163

rope, and the diameter of the limb over which the
rope was passed.

"Sure, an* I couldn't iv done better meself, Hans,
if it'd been for you."

He laughed loudly at his own sally, but Hans*s
face was frozen into a sullen ghastliness that nothing
less than the trump of doom could have broken.
Also, Hans was feeling very sick. He had not
realized the enormousness of the task of put-
ting a fellow-man out of the world. Edith, on
the other hand, had realized; but the realization
did not make the task any easier. She was filled
with doubt as to whether she could hold herself to-
gether long enough to finish it. She felt incessant
impulses to scream, to shriek, to collapse into the
snow, to put her hands over her eyes and turn and
run blindly away, into the forest, anywhere, away.
It was only by a supreme effort of soul that she was
able to keep upright and go on and do what she had
to do. And in the midst of it all she was grateful
to Dennin for the way he helped her.

"Lind me a hand," he said to Hans, with whose
assistance he managed to mount the barrel.

He bent over so that Edith could adjust the rope

i64 THE UNEXPECTED

about his neck. Then he stood upright while Hans
drew the rope taut across the overhead branch.

"Michael Dennin, have you an)rthing to say?'*
Edith asked in a clear voice that shook in spite of
her.

Dennin shuffled his feet on the barrel, looked
down bashfully like a man making his maiden
speech, and cleared his throat.

"Tm glad it's over with/' he said. "You've
treated me like a Christian, an' I'm thankin' you
hearty for your kindness."

"Then may God receive you, a repentant sinner,"
she said.

"Ay," he answered, his deep voice as a response
to her thin one, "may God receive me, a repintant
sinner."

"Good-by, Michael," she cried, and her voice
sounded desperate.

She threw her weight against the barrel, but it
did not overturn.

"Hans! Quick! Help me!" she cried faintly.

She could feel her last strength going, and the
barrel resisted her. Hans hurried to her, and the
barrel went out from under Michael Dennin.

THE UNEXPECI'ED 165

She turned her back, thrusting her fingers into
her ears. Then she began to laugh, harshly, sharply,
metallically; and Hans was shocked as he had not
been shocked through the whole tragedy. Edith
Nelson's break-down had come. Even in her
hysteria she knew it, and she was glad that she had
been able to hold up under the strain until every-
thing had been accomplished. She reeled toward
Hans.

"Take me to the cabin, Hans," she managed to
articulate.

"And let me rest," she added. "Just let me
rest, and rest, and rest."

With Hans's arm around her, supporting her
weight and directing her helpless steps, she went
off across the snow. But the Indians remained
solemnly to watch the working of the white man's
law that compelled a man to dance upon the air.

BROWN WOLF

BROWN WOLF

SHE had delayed, because of the dew-wet grass,
in order to put on her overshoes, and when
she emerged from the house found her wait-
ing husband absorbed ii> the wonder of a bursting
almond-bud. She sent a questing glance across the
tall grass and in and out among the orchard trees.

"Where's Wolf?" she asked.

**He was here a moment ago." Walt Irvine drew
himself away with a jerk from the metaphysics and
poetry of the organic miracle of blossom, and sur-
veyed the landscape. "He was running a rabbit
the last I saw of him."

"Wolf! Wolf! Here Wolf!" she called, as
they left the clearing and took the trail that led
down through the waxen-belled manzanita jungle
to the county road.

Irvine thrust between his lips the little finger
of each hand and lent to her efforts a shrill whistling.

She covered her ears hastily and made a wry
grimace.

169

I70 BROWN WOLF

"My! for a poet, delicately attuned and all the
rest of it, you can make unlovely noises. My ear-
drums are pierced. You outwhistle — **

"Orpheus."

"I was about to say a street-arab," she concluded
severely.

"Poesy does not prevent one from being prac-
tical — at least it doesn't prevent me. Mine is no
futility of genius that can't sell gems to the maga-
zines."

He assumed a mock extravagance, and went on :

" I am no attic singer, no ballroom warbler.
And why? Because I am practical. Mine is no
squalor of song that cannot transmute itself, with
proper exchange value, into a flower-crowned cot-
tage, a sweet mountain-meadow, a grove of red-
woods, an orchard of thirty-seven trees, one long
row of blackberries and two short rows of straw-
berries, to say nothing of a quarter of a mile of
gurgling brook. I am a beauty-merchant, a trader
in song, and I pursue utility, dear Madge. I sing
a song, and thanks to the magazine editors I trans-
mute my song into a waft of the west wind sighing
through our redwoods, into a murmur of waters

BROWN WOLF 171

over mossy stones that sings back to me anothef
song than the one I sang and yet the same song
wonderfully — er — transmuted/'

"O that all your song-transmutations were as
successful!** she laughed.

"Name one that wasn't."

"Those two beautiful sonnets that you trans-
muted into the cow that was accounted the worst
milker in the township."

"She was beautiful — " he began,

"But she didn't give milk," Madge interrupted.

"But she was beautiful, now, wasn't she?" he
insisted.

"And here's where beauty and utility fall out,"
was her reply. "And there's the Wolf I"

From the thicket-covered hillside came a crash-
ing of underbrush, and then, forty feet above them,
on the edge of the sheer wall of rock, appeared a
wolTs head and shoulders. His braced fore paws
dislodged a pebble, and with sharp-pricked ears
and peering eyes he watched the fall of the pebble
till it struck at their feet. Then he transferred his
gaze and with open mouth laughed down at
them.

172 BROWN WOLF

"You Wolf, you!" and "You blessed Wolf!'*
the man and woman called out to him.

The ears flattened back and down at the sound,
and the head seemed to snuggle under the caress
of an invisible hand.

They watched him scramble backward into the
thicket, then proceeded on their way. Several
minutes later, rounding a turn in the trail where
the descent was less precipitous, he joined them in
the midst of a miniature avalanche of pebbles and
loose soil. He was not demonstrative. A pat and
a rub around the ears from the man, and a more
prolonged caressing from the woman, and he was
away down the trail in front of them, gliding effort-
lessly over the ground in true wolf fashion.

In build and coat and brush he was a huge timber-
wolf; but the lie was given to his wolfhood by his
color and marking. There the dog unmistakably
advertised itself. No wolf was ever colored like
him. He was brown, deep brown, red-brown, an
orgy of browns. Back and shoulders were a warm
brown that paled on the sides and underneath to
a yellow that was dingy because of the brown that
lingered in it. The white of the throat and paws

BROWN WOLF 173

and the spots over the eyes was dirty because
of the persistent and ineradicable brown, while
the eyes themselves were twin topazes, golden and
brown.

The man and woman loved the dog very much;
perhaps this was because it had been such a task
to win his love. It had been no easy matter when
he first drifted in mysteriously out of nowhere
to their little mountain cottage. Footsore and
famished, he had killed a rabbit under their very
noses and under their very windows, and then
crawled away and slept by the spring at the foot
of the blackberry bushes. When Walt Irvine went
down to inspect the intruder, he was snarled at for
his pains, and Madge likewise was snarled at when
she went down to present, as a peace-ofFering, a
large pan of bread and milk.

A most unsociable dog he proved to be, resenting
all their advances, refusing to let them lay hands on
him, menacing them with bared fangs and bristling
hair. Nevertheless he remained, sleeping and rest-
ing by the spring, and eating the food they gave
him after they set it down at a safe distance and
retreated. His wretched physical condition ex^

174 BROWN WOLF

plained why he lingered; and when he had recuper-
ated, after several days' sojourn, he disappeared.

And this would have been the end of him, so far
as Irvine and his wife were concerned, had not
Irvine at that particular time been called away into
the northern part of the state. Riding along on
the train, near to the line between California and
Oregon, he chanced to look out of the window and
saw his unsociable guest sliding along the wagon
road, brown and wolfish, tired yet tireless, dust-
covered and soiled with two hundred miles of travel.

Now Irvine was a man of impulse, a poet. He
got off the train at the next station, bought a piece
of meat at a butcher shop, and captured the vagrant
on the outskirts of the town. The return trip was
made in the baggage car, and so Wolf came a second
time to the mountain cottage. Here he was tied up
for a week and made love to by the man and woman.
But it was very circumspect love-making. Re-
mote and alien as a traveller from another planet,
he snarled down their soft-spoken love-words. He
never barked. In all the time they had him he
was never known to bark.

To win him became a problem. Irvine liked

BROWN WOLF 175

problems. He had a metal plate made, on which
was stamped: Return to Walt Irvine, Glen
Ellen, Sonoma County, California. This was
riveted to a collar and strapped about the dog's
neck. Then he was turned loose, and promptly
he disappeared. A day later came a telegram
from Mendocino County. In twenty hours he had
made over a hundred miles to the north, and was
still going when captured.

He came back by Wells Fargo Express, was tied
up three days, and was loosed on the fourth and
lost. This time he gained southern Oregon before
he was caught and returned. Always, as soon as he
received his liberty, he fled away, and always he
fled north. He was possessed of an obsession that
drove him north. The homing instinct, Irvine called
it, after he had expended the selling price of a son-
net in getting the animal back from northern Oregon.

Another time the brown wanderer succeeded in
traversing half the length of California, all of Oregon,
and most of Washington, before he was picked up
and returned "Collect." A remarkable thing was the
speed with which he travelled. Fed up and rested,
as soon as he was loosed he devoted all his energy

176 BROWN WOLF

to getting over the ground. On the first day's run
he was known to cover as high as a hundred and
fifty miles, and after that he would average a hun-
dred miles a day until caught. He always arrived
back lean and hungry and savage, and always de-
parted fresh and vigorous, cleaving his way north-
ward in response to some prompting of his being
that no one could understand.

But at last, after a futile year of flight, he accepted
the inevitable and elected to remain at the cottage
where first he had killed the rabbit and slept by the
spring. Even after that, a long time elapsed before
the man and woman succeeded in patting him. It
was a great victory, for they alone were allowed to
put hands on him. He was fastidiously exclusive^
and no guest at the cottage ever succeeded in making
up to him. A low growl greeted such approach;
if any one had the hardihood to come nearer, the
lips lifted, the naked fangs appeared, and the growl
became a snarl — a snarl so terrible and malignant
that it awed the stoutest of them, as it likewise awed
the farmers* dogs that knew ordinary dog-snarling,
but had never seen wolf-snarling before.

He was without antecedents. His history began

BROWN WOLF 177

with Walt and Madge. He had come up from the
south, but never a clew did they get of the owner
from whom he had evidently fled. Mrs. Johnson,
their nearest neighbor and the one who supplied
them with milk, proclaimed him a Klondike dog.
Her brother was burrowing for frozen pay-streaks
in that far country, and so she constituted herself
an authority on the subject.

But they did not dispute her. There were the tips
of Woirs ears, obviously so severely frozen at some
time that they would never quite heal again. Be-
sides, he looked like the photographs of the Alaskan
dogs they saw published in magazines and news-
papers. They often speculated over his past, and
tried to conjure up (from what they had read and
heard) what his northland life had been. That
the northland still drew him, they knew; for at
night they sometimes heard him crying softly;
and when the north wind blew and the bite of frost
was in the air, a great restlessness would come upon
him and he would lift a mournful lament which they
knew to be the long wolf-howl. Yet he never
barked. No provocation was great enough to draw
from him that canine ciy.

178 BROWN WOLF

Long discussion they had, during the time of
winning him, as to whose dog he was. Each claimed
him, and each proclaimed loudly any expression of
affection made by him. But the man had the better
of it at first, chiefly because he was a man. It was
patent that Wolf had had no experience with women.
He did not understand women. Madge's skirts
were something he never quite accepted. The
swish of them was enough to set him a-bristle with
suspicion, and on a windy day she could not approach
him at all.

On the other hand, it was Madge who fed him;
also it was she who ruled the kitchen, and it was by
her favor, and her favor alone, that he was permitted
to come within that sacred precinct. It was because
of these things that she bade fair to overcome the
handicap of her garments. Then it was that Walt
put forth special effort, making it a practice to have
Wolf lie at his feet while he wrote, and, between
petting and talking, losing much time from his
work. Walt won in the end, and his victory was
most probably due to the fact that he was a man,
though Madge averred that they would have had
another quarter of a mile of gurgling brook, and at

BROWN WOLF 179

least two west winds sighing through their redwoods,
had Walt properly devoted his energies to song-
transmutation and left Wolf alone to exercise a
natural taste and an unbiassed judgment.

"It's about time I heard from those triolets,"
Walt said, after a silence of five minutes, during
which they had swung steadily down the trail.
"There'll be a check at the post-office, I know, and
we'll transmute it into beautiful buckwheat flour,
a gallon of maple syrup, and a new pair of
overshoes for you."

"And into beautiful milk from Mrs. Johnson's
beautiful cow," Madge added. "To-morrow's the
first of the month, you know."

Walt scowled unconsciously; then his face bright-
ened, and he clapped his hand to his breast
pocket.

"Never mind. I have here a nice beautiful new
cow, the best milker in California."

"When did you write it?" she demanded eagerly.
Then, reproachfully, "And you never showed it to
me.

"I saved it to read to you on the way to the post-
office, in a spot remarkably like this one," he an-

i8o BROWN WOLF

swered, indicating^ with a wave of his hand, a dry
log on which to sit.

A tiny stream flowed out of a dense fern-brake,
slipped down a mossy-lipped stone, and ran across
the path at their feet. From the valley arose the
mellow song of meadow-larks, while about them, in
and out, through sunshine and shadow, fluttered
great yellow butterflies.

Up from below came another sound that broke
in upon Walt reading softly from his manuscript.
It was a crunching of heavy feet, punctuated now
and again by the clattering of a displaced stone.
As Walt finished and looked to his wife for approval,
a man came into view around the turn of the trail.
He was bare-headed and sweaty. With a hand-
kerchief in one hand he mopped his face, while in
the other hand he carried a new hat and a wilted
starched collar which he had removed from his neck.
He was a well-built man, and his muscles seemed
on the point of bursting out of the painfully new and
ready-made black clothes he wore.

"Warm day," Walt greeted him. Walt believed
in country democracy, and never missed an oppor-
tunity to practise it.

BROWN WOLF i8i

The man paused and nodded.

"I guess I ain't used much to the warm," he
vouchsafed half apologetically. "Fm more accus-
tomed to zero weather."

"You don't find any of that in this country,"
Walt laughed.

"Should say not," the man answered. "An*
I ain't here a-lookin' for it neither. I'm tryin' to
find my sister. Mebbe you know where she lives.
Her name's Johnson, Mrs. William Johnson."

"You're not her Klondike brother!" Madge
cried, her eyes bright with interest, "about whom
we've heard so much ?"

"Yes'm, that's me," he answered modestly.
"My name's Miller, SkiflF Miller. I just thought
I'd s'prise her."

"You are on the right track then. Only you've
come by the foot-path." Madge stood up to direct
him, pointing up the canyon a quarter of a mile.
"You see that blasted redwood? Take the little
trail turning off to the right. It's the short cut to
her house. You can't miss it."

"Yes'm, thank you, ma'am," he said.

He made tentative efforts to go, but seemed

i82 BROWN WOLF

awkwardly rooted to the spot. He was gazing at
her with an open admiration of which he was quite
unconscious, and which was drowning, along with
him, in the rising sea of embarrassment in which
he floundered.

"We'd like to hear you tell about the Klondike,"
Madge said. "Mayn't we come over some day
while you are at your sister's ? Or, better yet,
won't you come over and have dinner with us.?"

"Yes'm, thank you, ma'am," he mumbled
mechanically. Then he caught himself up and
added: "I ain't stoppin' long. I got to be puUin'
north again. I go out on to-night's train. You
see, I've got a mail contract with the government."

When Madge had said that it was too bad, he
made another futile effort to go. But he could not
take his eyes from her face. He forgot his embar-
rassment in his admiration, and it was her turn to
flush and feel uncomfortable.

It was at this juncture, when Walt had just de-
cided it was time for him to be saying something to
relieve the strain, that Wolf, who had been away
nosing through the brush, trotted wolf-like into
view.

BROWN WOLF 183

SkifF Miller's abstraction disappeared. The
pretty woman before him passed out of his field of
vision. He had eyes only for the dog, and a great
wonder came into his face.

"Well, rU be damned!" he enunciated slowly
and solemnly.

He sat down ponderingly on the log, leaving
Madge standing. At the sound of his voice, WolPs
ears had flattened down, then his mouth had opened
in a laugh. He trotted slowly up to the stranger
and first smelled his hands, then licked them with
his tongue.

Skiff Miller patted the dog's head, and slowly
and solemnly repeated, "Well, V\\ be damned!*'

"Excuse me, ma'am," he said the next moment,
"I was just s'prised some, that was all."

"We're surprised, too," she answered lightly.
"We never saw Wolf make up to a stranger before."

"Is that what you call him — Wolf?" the man
asked.

Madge nodded. "But I can't understand his
friendliness toward you — unless it's because you're
from the Klondike. He's a Klondike dog, you
know."

i84 BROWN WOLF

"Yes'm/' Miller said absently. He lifted one
of Wolf's fore legs and examined the foot-pads>
pressing them and denting them with his thumb.
"Kind of soft," he remarked. "He ain't been on
trail for a long time."

"I say," Walt broke in, "it is remarkable the way
he lets you handle him."

Skiff Miller arose, no longer awkward with ad-
miration of Madge, and in a sharp, businesslike
manner asked, "How long have you had him.?"

But just then the dog, squirming and rubbing
against the newcomer's legs, opened his mouth
and barked. It was an explosive bark, brief and
joyous, but a bark.

"That's a new one on me," Skiff Miller remarked.

Walt and Madge stared at each other. The
miracle had happened. Wolf had barked.

" It's the first time he ever barked," Madge said.

"First time I ever heard him, too," Miller volun-
teered.

Madge smiled at him. The man was evidently
a humorist.

"Of course," she said, "since you have only seen
him for five minutes."

BROWN WOLF 185

SkifF Miller looked at her sharply, seeking in her
face the guile her words had led him to suspect.

"I thought you understood/* he said slowly,
"I thought you'd tumbled to it from his makin*
up to me. He's my dog. His name ain't Wolf,
It's Brown."

"Oh, Walt!" was Madge's instinctive cry to her
husband.

Walt was on the defensive at once.

"How do you know he's your dog?" he de-
manded.

"Because he is," was the reply.

"Mere assertion," Walt said sharply.

In his slow and pondering way, SkifF Miller
looked at him, then asked, with a nod of his head
toward Madge:

"How d'you know she's your wife? You just
say, * Because she is,' and I'll say it's mere assertion.
The dog's mine. I bred 'm an' raised 'm, an' I
guess I ought to know. Look here. I'll prove it
to you."

SkifF Miller turned to the dog. "Brown 1" His
voice rang out sharply, and at the sound the dog's
ears flattened down as to a caress. "Geel" The.

i86 BROWN WOLF

dog made a swinging turn to the right. "Now
mush-on !" And the dog ceased his swing abruptly
and started straight ahead, halting obediently at
command.

"I can do it with whistles," Skiff Miller said
proudly. "He was my lead dog.'*

" But you are not going to take him away with
you?" Madge asked tremulously.

The man nodded.

"Back into that awful Klondike world of suffer-
mg?"

He nodded and added: "Oh, it ain't so bad as
all that. Look at me. Pretty healthy specimen,
ain't I?"

" But the dogs ! The terrible hardship, the heart-
breaking toil, the starvation, the frost! Oh, I've
read about it and I know."

"I nearly ate him once, over on Little Fish River,"
Miller volunteered grimly. " If I hadn't got a moose
that day was all that saved 'm."

"I'd have died first!" Madge cried.

"Things is different down here," Miller ex-
plained. "You don't have to eat dogs. You
think different just about the time you're all in.

BROWN WOLF 187

YouVe never ben all in, so you don't know any-
thing about it."

"That's the very point," she argued warmly.
"Dogs are not eaten in California. Why not leave
him here ? He is happy. He'll never want for
food — you know that. He'll never suffer from
cold and hardship. Here all is softness and gentle-
ness. Neither the human nor nature is savage.
He will never know a whip-lash again. And as
for the weather — why, it never snows here."

"But it's all-fired hot in summer, beggin' your
pardon," Skiff Miller laughed.

"But you do not answer," Madge continued
passionately. "What have you to offer him in
that northland life?"

"Grub, when I've got it, and that's most of the
time," came the answer.

"And the rest of the time?"

"No grub." .

"And the work?"

"Yes, plenty of work," Miller blurted out im-
patiently. "Work without end, an' famine, an'
frost, an all the rest of the miseries — that's what
he'll get when he comes with me. But he likes it.

i88 BROWN WOLF

He is used to it. He knows that life. He was born
to it an* brought up to it. An* you don't know any-
thing about it. You don't know what you're talk-
ing about. That's where the dog belongs, and
that's where he'll be happiest."

"The dog doesn't go," Walt announced in a
determined voice. "So there is no need of further
discussion."

"What's that ?" Skiff Miller demanded, his brows
lowering and an obstinate flush of blood reddening
his forehead.

"I said the dog doesn't go, and that settles it.
I don't believe he's your dog. You may have seen
him sometime. You may even sometime have
driven him for his owner. But his obeying the
ordinary driving commands of the Alaskan trail
is no demonstration that he is yours. Any dog in
Alaska would obey you as he obeyed. Besides,
he is undoubtedly a valuable dog, as dogs go in
Alaska, and that is suflicient explanation of your
desire to get possession of him. Anyway, you've
got to prove property."

Skiff Miller, cool and collected, the obstinate
flush a trifle deeper on his forehead, his huge muscles

BROWN WOLF 189

bulging under the black cloth of his coat, carefully
looked the poet up and down as though measuring
the strength of his slenderness.

The Klondiker's face took on a contemptuous
expression as he said finally, "I reckon there's
nothin' in sight to prevent me takin' the dog right
here an* now."

Walt's face reddened, and the striking-muscles
of his arms and shoulders seemed to stiffen and grow
tense. His wife fluttered apprehensively into the
breach.

"Maybe Mr. Miller is right," she said. "I am
afraid that he is. Wolf does seem to know him,
and certainly he answers to the name of * Brown.'
He made friends with him instantly, and you know
that's something he never did with anybody before.
Besides, look at the way he barked. He was just
bursting with joy. Joy over what ? Without doubt
at finding Mr. Miller."

Walt's striking-muscles relaxed, and his shoulders
seemed to droop with hopelessness.

"I guess you're right, Madge," he said. "Wolf
isn't Wolf, but Brown, and he must belong to Mn
Miller."

igo BROWN WOLF

"Perhaps Mr. Miller will sell him," she sug-
gested. "We can buy him.'*

SkifF Miller shook his head, no longer belligerent,
but kindly, quick to be generous in response to gen-
erousness

"I had five dogs," he said, casting about for the
easiest way to temper his refusal. "He was the
leader. They was the crack team of Alaska. Nothin'
could touch *em. In 1898 I refused five thousand
dollars for the bunch. Dogs was high, then, any-
way; but that wasn't what made the fancy price.
It was the team itself. Brown was the best in the
team. That winter I refused twelve hundred for
*m. I didn't sell 'm then, an' I ain't a-sellin' 'm
now. Besides, I think a mighty lot of that dog.
I've ben lookin' for *m for three years. It made
me fair sick when I found he'd ben stole — not the
value of him, but the — well, I liked 'm like hell,
that's all, beggin' your pardon. I couldn't believe
my eyes when I seen 'm just now. I thought I was
dreamin'. It was too good to be true. Why, I
was his wet-nurse. I put 'm to bed, snug every
night. His mother died, and I brought 'm up on
condensed milk at two dollars a can when I couldn't

BROWN WOLF 191

afford it in my own coffee. He never knew any
mother but me. He used to suck my finger regular,
the dam little cuss — that finger right there!'*

And Skiff Miller, too overwrought for speech,
held up a fore finger for them to see.

"That very finger,'* he managed to articulate,
as though it somehow clinched the proof of owner-
ship and the bond of affection.

He was still gazing at his extended finger when
Madge began to speak.

"But the dog," she said. "You haven't con-
sidered the dog."

Skiff Miller looked puzzled.

"Have you thought about him?" she asked.

"Don't know what you're drivin' at," was the
response.

"Maybe the dog has some choice in the matter,"
Madge went on. "Maybe he has his likes and
desires. You have not considered him. You give
him no choice. It has never entered your mind
that possibly he might prefer California to Alaska.
You consider only what you like. You do with
him as you would with a sack of potatoes or a bale
of hay."

192 BROWN WOLF

This was a new way of looking at it, and Miller
was visibly impressed as he debated it in his mind.
Madge took advantage of his indecision.

" If you really love him, what would be happiness
to him would be your happiness also,*' she urged.

Skiff Miller continued to debate with himself,
and Madge stole a glance of exultation to her hus-
band, who looked back warm approval.

"What do you think?" the Klondiker suddenly
demanded.

It was her turn to be puzzled. "What do you
mean?" she asked.

"D'ye think he'd sooner stay in California?"

She nodded her head with positiveness. "I am
sure of it."

Skiff Miller again debated with himself, though
this time aloud, at the same time running his gaze
in a judicial way over the mooted animal.

"He was a good worker. He's done a heap of
work for me. He never loafed on me, an' he was
a joe-dandy at hammerin' a raw team into shape.
He's got a head on him. He can do everything but
talk. He knows what you say to him. Look at *m
now. He knows we're talkin' about him."

BROWN WOLF 193

The dog was lying at SkifF Miller's feet, head
close down on paws, ears erect and listening, and
eyes that were quick and eager to follow the sound
of speech as it fell from the lips of first one and then
the other.

**An' there's a lot of work in 'm yet. He's good
for years to come. An' I do like him. I like him
like hell."

Once or twice after that Skiff Miller opened
his mouth and closed it again without speaking.
Finally he said:

"I'll tell you what I'll do. Your remarks, ma'am,
has some weight in them. The dog's worked hard,
and maybe he's earned a soft berth an' has got a
right to choose. Anyway, we'll leave it up to him.
Whatever he says, goes. You people stay right
here settin' down. I'll say good-by and walk off
casual-like. If he wants to stay, he can stay. If he
wants to come with me, let 'm come. I won't
call 'm to come an' don't you call 'm to come
back."

He looked with sudden suspicion at Madge, and
added, "Only you must play fair. No persuadin*
after my back is turned."

194 BROWN WOLF

"We'll play fair," Madge began, but Skiff Miller
broke in on her assurances.

"I know the ways of women," he announced.
** Their hearts is soft. When their hearts is touched
they're likely to stack the cards, look at the bottom
of the deck, an* lie like the devil — beggin' your
pardon, ma'am. I'm only discoursin' about women
in general."

"I don't know how to thank you," Madge qua-
vered.

"I don't see as you've got any call to thank me,"
he replied. "Brown ain't decided yet. Now you
won't mind if I go away slow? It's no more'n
fair, seein' I'll be out of sight inside a hundred yards."

Madge agreed, and added, "And I promise you
faithfully that we won't do anything to influence
him."

"Well, then, I might as well be gettin' along,"
Skiff Miller said in the ordinary tones of one de-
parting.

At this change in his voice. Wolf lifted his head
quickly, and still more quickly got to his feet when
the man and woman shook hands. He sprang up
on his hind legs, resting his fore paws on her hip

BROWN WOLF 195

and at the same time licking SkifF Miller's hand.
When the latter shook hands with Walt/ Wolf re-
peated his act, resting his weight on Walt and
licking both men's hands.

"It ain't no picnic, I can tell you that," were the
Klondiker's last words, as he turned and went
slowly up the trail.

For the distance of twenty feet Wolf watched him
go, himself all eagerness and expectancy, as though
waiting for the man to turn and retrace his steps.
Then, with a quick low whine, Wolf sprang after
him, overtook him, caught his hand between his
teeth with reluctant tenderness, and strove gently
to make him pause.

Failing in this. Wolf raced back to where Walt
Irvine sat, catching his coat-sleeve in his teeth and
trying vainly to drag him after the retreating
man.

Wolf's perturbation began to wax. He desired
ubiquity. He wanted to be in two places at the same
time, with the old master and the new, and steadily
the distance between them was increasing. He sprang
about excitedly, making short nervous leaps and
twists, now toward one, now toward the other, in

196 BROWN WOLF

painful indecision, not knowing his own mind^
desiring both and unable to choose, uttering quick
sharp whines and beginning to pant.

He sat down abruptly on his haunches, thrusting
his nose upward, the mouth opening and closing
with jerking movements, each time opening wider.
These jerking movements were in unison with the
recurrent spasms that attacked the throat, each
spasm severer and more intense than the preceding
one. And in accord with jerks and spasms the
larynx began to vibrate, at first silently, accom-
panied by the rush of air expelled from the lungs,
then sounding a low, deep note, the lowest in the
register of the human ear. All this was the nervous
and muscular preliminary to howling.

But just as the howl was on the verge of bursting
from the full throat, the wide-opened mouth was
closed, the paroxysms ceased, and he looked long
and steadily at the retreating man. Suddenly
Wolf turned his head, and over his shoulder just
as steadily regarded Walt. The appeal was un-
answered. Not a word nor a sign did the dog re-
ceive, no suggestion and no clew as to what his
conduct should be.

BROWN WOLF 197

A glance ahead to where the old master was Hear-
ing the curve of the trail excited him again. He
sprang to his feet with a whine, and then, struck by
a new idea, turned his attention to Madge. Hith-
erto he had ignored her, but now, both masters
failing him, she alone was left. He went over to
her and snuggled his head in her lap, nudging her
arm with his nose — an old trick of his when beg-
ging for favors. He backed away from her and
began writhing and twisting playfully, curvetting
and prancing, half rearing and striking his fore
paws to the earth, struggling with all his body, from
the wheedling eyes and flattening ears to the wagging
tail, to express the thought that was in him and that
was denied him utterance.

This, too, he soon abandoned. He was depressed
by the coldness of these humans who had never
been cold before. No response could he draw
from them, no help could he get. They did not
consider him. They were as dead.

He turned and silently gazed after the old master.
Skiff Miller was rounding the curve. In a moment
he would be gone from view. Yet he never turned
his head, plodding straight onward, slowly and

198 BROWN WOLF

methodically, as though possessed of no interest
in what was occurring behind his back.

And in this fashion he went out of view. Wolf
waited for him to reappear. He waited a long
minute, silently, quietly, without movement, as
though turned to stone — withal stone quick with
eagerness and desire. He barked once, and waited.
Then he turned and trotted back to Walt Irvine.
He sniffed his hand and dropped down heavily at
his feet, watching the trail where it curved emptily
from view.

The tiny stream slipping down the mossy-lipped
stone seemed suddenly to increase the volume of
its gurgling noise. Save for the meadow-larks,
there was no other sound. The great yellow butter-
flies drifted silently through the sunshine and lost
themselves in the drowsy shadows. Madge gazed
triumphantly at her husband.

A few minutes later Wolf got upon his feet. De-
cision and deliberation marked his movements.
He did not glance at the man and woman. His
eyes were fixed up the trail. He had made up his
mind. They knew it. And they knew, so far as
they were concerned, that the ordeal had just begun.

BROWN WOLF 199

He broke into a trot, and Madge's lips pursed,
forming an avenue for the caressing sound that it
was the will of her to send forth. But the caressing
sound was not made. She was impelled to look at
her husband, and she saw the sternness with which
he watched her. The pursed lips relaxed, and she
sighed inaudibly.

Wolfs trot broke into a run. Wider and wider
were the leaps he made. Not once did he turn his
head, his wolf's brush standing out straight behind
him. He cut sharply across the curve of the trail
and was gone.

THE SUN-DOG TRAIL

THE SUN-DOG TRAIL*

SITKA CHARLEY smoked his pipe and gazed
thoughtfully at the Police Gazette illustration
on the wall. For half an hour he had been
steadily regarding it, and for half an hour I had
been slyly watching him. Something was going
on in that mind of his, and, whatever it was, I knew
it was well worth knowing. He had lived life, and
seen things, and performed that prodigy of prodi-
gies, namely, the turning of his back upon his own
people, and, in so far as it was possible for an Indian,
becoming a white man even in his mental processes.
As he phrased it himself, he had come into the
warm, sat among us, by our fires, and become one
of us. He had never learned to read nor write,
but his vocabulary was remarkable, and more
remarkable still was the completeness with which
he had assumed the white man's point of view, the
white man's attitude toward things.
We had struck this deserted cabin after a hard

* CorvsiGHTy 1905, BY Harpbr & Bkothsbs.
203

204 THE SUN-DOG TRAIL

day on trail. The dogs had been fed, the supper
dishes washed, the beds made, and we were now
enjoying that most delicious hour that comes each
day, and but once each day, on the Alaskan trails
the hour when nothing intervenes between the tired
body and bed save the smoking of the evening pipe.
Some former denizen of the cabin had decorated
its walls with illustrations torn from magazines and
newspapers, and it was these illustrations that had
held Sitka Charley's attention from the moment of
our arrival two hours before. He had studied them
intently, ranging from one to another and back
again, and I could see that there was uncertainty
in his mind, and bepuzzlement.

"Well?" I finally broke the silence.

He took the pipe from his mouth and said simply^
*'I do not understand."

He smoked on again, and again removed the pipe*
using it to point at the Police Gazette illustration.

"That picture — what does it mean? I do not
understand."

I looked at the picture. A man, with a pre-
posterously wicked face, his right hand pressed
dramatically to his heart, was falling backward ta

THE SUN-DOG TRAIL 205

the floor. Confronting him, with a face that was
a composite of destroying angel and Adonis, was a
man holding a smoking revolver.

"One man is killing the other man,'' I said,
aware of a distinct bepuzzlement of my own and of
failure to explain.

"Why?'' asked Sitka Charley.

"I do not know," I confessed.

"That picture is all end," he said. "It has no
beginning."

"It is life," I said.

"Life has beginning," he objected.

I was silenced for the moment, while his eyes
wandered on to an adjoining decoration, a photo-
graphic reproduction of somebody's "Leda and the
Swan."

"That picture," he said, "has no beginning.
It has no end. I do not understand pictures."

"Look at that picture," I commanded, pointing
to a third decoration. "It means something. Tell
me what it means to you."

He studied it for several minutes.

"The little girl is sick," he said finally. "That
is the doctor looking at her. They have been up

2o6 THE SUN-DOG TRAIL

all night — see, the oil is low in the lamp, the first
morning light is coming in at the window. It is
a great sickness; maybe she will die, that is why
the doctor looks so hard. That is the mother. It
is a great sickness, because the mother's head is
on the table and she is crying."

"How do you know she is crying ?" I interrupted.
"You cannot see her face. Perhaps she is asleep.'*

Sitka Charley looked at me in swift surprise, then
back at the picture. It was evident that he had not^
reasoned the impression.

" Perhaps she is asleep," he repeated. He studied
it closely. "No, she is not asleep. The shoulders
show that she is not asleep. I have seen the shoulders
of a woman who cried. The mother is ciying. It
is a veiy great sickness."

"And now you understand the picture," I cried.

He shook his head, and asked, "The little girl
— does it die?"

It was my turn for silence.

** Does it die ? " he reiterated. " You are a painter-
man. Maybe you know."

"No, I do not know," I confessed.

" It is not life," he delivered himself dogmatically.

THE SUN-DOG TRAIL 207

'*In life little girl die or get well. Something hap-
pen in life. In picture nothing happen. No, I
do not understand pictures.**

His disappointment was patent. It was his desire
to understand all things that white men under-
stand, and here, in this matter, he failed. I felt,
also, that there wai challenge in his attitude. He
was bent upon compelling me to show him the wis-
dom of pictures. Besides, he had remarkable
powers of visualization. I had long since learned
this. He visualized everything. He saw life in
pictures, felt life in pictures, generalized life in
pictures; and yet he did not understand pictures
when seen through other men's eyes and expressed
by those men with color and line upon canvas.

"Pictures are bits of life," I said. "We paint
life as we see it. For instance, Charley, you are
coming along the trail. It is night. You see a
cabin. The window is lighted. You look through
the window for one second, or for two seconds,
you see something, and you go on your way. You
saw maybe a man writing a letter. You saw some-
thing without beginning or end. Nothing happened.
Yet it was a bit of life you saw. You remember

908 THE SUN-DOG TRAIL

it afterward. It is like a picture in your memory.
The window is the frame of the picture."

I could see that he was interested, and I knew
that as I spoke he had looked through the window
•and seen the man writing the letter.

''There is a picture you have painted that I
imderstand/' he said. ''It is a true picture. It
has much meaning. It is in your cabin at Dawson.
It is a faro table. There are men playing. It is
a large game. The limit is oflF.''

"How do you know the limit is oflF?'' I broke in
excitedly, for here was where my work could be
tried out on an unbiassed judge who knew life only,
and not art, and who was a sheer master of reality.
Also, I was very proud of that parricular piece of
work. I had named it "The Last Turn," and I
believed it to be one of the best things I had ever
done.

"There are no chips on the table," Sitka Charley
explained. "The men are playing with markers.
That means the roof is the limit. One man play
yellow markers — maybe one yellow marker worth
one thousand dollars, maybe two thousand dollars.
One man play red markers. Maybe they are

THE SXJN-DOG TRAIL 209

worth five hundred dollars, maybe one thousand
dollars. It is a very big game. Everybody play
very high, up to the roof. How do I know? You
make the dealer with blood little bit warm in face."
(I was delighted.) "The lookout, you make him
lean forward in his chair. Why he lean forward?
Why his face very much quiet? Why his eyes
very much bright? Why dealer warm with blood
a little bit in the face? Why all men very quiet?
— the man with yellow markers ? the man with
white markers ? the man with red markers ? Why
nobody talk? Because very much money. Be-
cause last turn.**

"How do you know it is the last turn?" I
asked.

"The king is coppered, the seven is played open,*'
he answered. "Nobody bet on other cards. Other
cards all gone. Everybody one mind. Everybody
play king to lose, seven to win. Maybe bank lose
twenty thousand dollars, maybe bank win. Yes,
that picture I understand.**

"Yet you do not know the end!** I cried trium-
phantly. "It is the last turn, but the cards are
not yet turned. In the picture they will never be

MO THE SUN-DOG TRAIL

turned. Nobody will ever know who wins nor who
loses."

"And the men will sit there and never talk/* he
said, wonder and awe growing in his face. "And
the lookout will lean forward, and the blood will be
warm in the face of the dealer. It is a strange
thing. Always will they sit there, always; and
the cards will never be turned."

"It is a picture," I said. "It is life. You have
seen things like it yourself."

He looked at me and pondered, then said, very
slowly: "No, as you say, there is no end to it. No-
body will ever know the end. Yet is it a true thing.
I have seen it. It is life."

For a long time he smoked on in silence, weighing
the pictorial wisdom of the white man and verifying
it by the facts of life. He nodded his head several
times, and grunted once or twice. Then he knocked
the ashes from his pipe, carefully refilled it, an^
after a thoughtful pause, lighted it again.

"Then have I, too, seen many pictures of life,"
he began; "pictures not painted, but seen with the
eyes. I have looked at them like through the win-
dow at the man writing the letter. I have seen

THE SUN-DOG TRAIL 211

many pieces of life, without beginning, without
end, without understanding/*

With a sudden change of position he turned his
eyes full upon me and regarded me thoughtfully.

*'Look you,** he said; "you are a painter-man.
How would you paint this which I saw, a picture
without beginning, the ending of which I do not
understand, a piece of life with the northern lights
for a candle and Alaska for a frame.**

"It is a large canvas,** I murmured.

But he ignored me, for the picture he had in mind
was before his eyes and he was seeing it.

"There are many names for this picture,*' he
said. "But in the picture there are many sun-
dogs, and it comes into my mind to call It 'The
Sun-Dog Trail.* It was a long time ago, seven
years ago, the fall of '97, when I saw the woman
first time. At Lake Linderman I had one canoe,
very good Peterborough canoe. I came over Chil-
coot Pass with two thousand letters for Dawscm.
I was letter carrier. Everybody rush to Klondike
at that time. Many people on trail. Many people
chop down trees and make boats. Last water,
snow in the air, snow on the ground, ice on the lake,

212 THE SUN-DOG TRAIL

on the river ice in the eddies. Every day more
snow, more ice. Maybe one day, maybe three days,
maybe six days, any day maybe freeze-up come,
then no more water, all ice, everybody walk, Daw-
son six hundred miles, long time walk. Boat go
very quick. Everybody want to go boat. Every-
body say, 'Charley, two hundred dollars you take
me in canoe,' 'Charley, three hundred dollars/
'Charley, four hundred dollars.' I say no, all the
time I say no. I am letter carrier.

"In morning I get to Lake Linderman. I walk
all night and am much tired. I cook breakfast, I
eat, then I sleep on the beach three hours. I wake
up. It is ten o'clock. Snow is falling. There is
wind, much wind that blows fair. Also, there is a
woman who sits in the snow alongside. She is
white woman, she is young, very pretty, maybe she
is twenty years old, maybe twenty-five years
old. She look at me. I look at her. She is
very tired. She is no dance-woman. I see that
right away. She is good woman, and she is very
tired.

"'You are Sitka Charley,' she says. I get up
quick and roll blankets so snow does not get inside.

THE SUN-DOG TRAIL 213

* I go to Dawson/ she says. * I go in your canoe —
how much ?'

"I do not want anybody in my canoe. I do not
like to say no. So I say, *One thousand dollars.'
Just for fun I say it, so woman cannot come with
me, much better than say no. She look at me very
hard, then she says, *When you start?' I say right
away. Then she says all right, she will give me
one thousand dollars.

''What can I say? I do not want the woman,
yet have I given my word that for one thousand
dollars she can come. I am surprised. Maybe
she make fun, too, so I say, 'Let me see thousand
dollars.' And that woman, that young woman,
all alone on the trail, there in the snow, she take
out one thousand dollars, in greenbacks, and she
put them in my hand. I look at money, I look at
her. What can I say? I say, *No, my canoe very
small. There is no room for outfit.' She laugh.
She says, *I am great traveller. This is my outfit.
She kick one small pack in the snow. It is two
fur robes, canvas outside, some woman's clothes
inside. I pick it up. Maybe thirty-five pounds.
I am surprised. She take it away from me. She

214 THE SUN-DOG TRAIL

says, *G)me, let us start/ She carries pack into
canoe. What can I say? I put my blankets into
canoe. We start.

"And that is the way I saw the woman first time.
The wind was fair. I put up small sail. The
canoe went very fast, it flew like a bird over the
high waves. The woman was much afraid. 'What
for you come Klondike much afraid?' I ask. She
laugh at me, a hard laugh, but she is still much
afraid. Also is she very tired. I run canoe through
rapids to Lake Bennett. Water very bad, and
woman cry out because she is afraid. We go down
Lake Bennett, snow, ice, wind like a gale, but
woman is very tired and go to sleep.

"That night we make camp at Windy Arm.
Woman sit by fire and eat supper. I look at her.
She is pretty. She fix hair. There is much hair,
and it is brown, also sometimes it is like gold in the
firelight, when she turn her head, so, and flashes
come from it like golden fire. The eyes are large
and brown, sometimes warm like a candle behind
a curtain, sometimes very hard and bright like
broken ice when sun shines upon it. When she
smile — how can I say ? — when she smile I know

THE SUN-DOG TRAIL 215

white man like to kiss her, just like that, when she
smile. She aever do hard work. Her hands are
soft, like baby's hand. She is soft all over, like
baby. She is not thin, but round like baby; her
arm, her leg, her muscles, all soft and round like
baby. Her waist is small, and when she stand up,
when she walk, or move her head or arm, it is —
I do not know the word — but it is nice to look at,
like — maybe I say she is built on lines like the
lines of a good canoe, just like that, and when she
move she is like the movement of the good canoe
sliding through still water or leaping through water
when it is white and fast and angry. It is very good
to see.

"Why does she come into Klondike, all alone,
with plenty of money ? I do not know. Next day
I ask her. She laugh and says : 'Sitka Charley, that
is none of your business. I give you one thousand
dollars take me to Dawson. That only is your
business.' Next day after that I ask her what is
her name. She laugh, then she says, *Mary Jones^
that is my name.* I do not know her name, but I
know all the time that Mary Jones is not her name.

"It is very cold in canoe, and because of cold

9x6 THE SUN--DOG TRAIL

sometimes she not feel good. Sometimes she feei
good and she sing. Her voice is like a silver bell»
and I feel good all over like when I go into church
at Holy Cross Mission, and when she sing I feel
strong and paddle like hell. Then she laugh and
says, * You think we get to Dawson before freeze-up,
Charley?' Sometimes she sit in canoe and is
thinking far away, her eyes like that, all empQr.
She does not see Sitka Charley, nor the ice, nor the
snow. She is far away. Very often she is like
that, thinking far away. Sometimes, when she is
thinking far away, her face is not good to see. It
looks like a face that is angry, like the face of one
man when he want to kill another man.

"Last day to Dawson very bad. Shore-ice in all
the eddies, mush-ice in the stream. I cannot
paddle. The canoe freeze to ice. I cannot get
to shore. There is much danger. All the time we
go down Yukon in the ice. That night there is
much noise of ice. Then ice stop, canoe stop,
everything stop. *Let us go to shore,* the woman
says. I say no, better wait. By and by, everything
start down-stream again. There is much snow. I
cannot see. At eleven o'clock at night, everything

THE SUN-DOG TRAIL 217

stop. At one o'clock everything start again. At
three o'clock everything stop. Canoe is smashed
like eggshell, but is on top of ice and cannot sink.
I hear dogs howling. We wait. We sleep. By
and by morning come. There is no more snow.
It is the freeze-up, and there is Dawson. Canoe
smash and stop right at Dawson. Sitka Charley
has come in with two thousand letters on very last
water.

"The woman rent a cabin on the hill, and for
one week I see her no more. Then, one day,, she
come to me. 'Charley,' she says, *how do you like
to work for me? You drive dogs, make camp,,
travel with me.' I say that I make too much money
carrying letters. She says, * Charley, I will pay you
more money.' I tell her that pick-and-shovel man
get fifteen dollars a day in the mines. She says,,
*That is four hundred and fifty dollars a month.'
And I say, 'Sitka Charley is no pick-and-shovel
man.' Then she says, *I understand, Charley. I
will give you seven hundred and fifty dollars each
month.' It is a good price, and I go to work for
her. I buy for her dogs and sled. We travel up
Klondike, up Bonanza and Eldorado, over to

2i8 THE SUN-DOG TRAIL

Indian River, to Sulphur Creek, to Dominion, back
across divide to Gold Bottom and to Too Much
Gold, and back to Dawson. All the time she look
for something, I do not know what. I am puzzled.
'What thing, you look for?' I ask. She laugh.
*You look for gold?' I ask. She laugh. Then
she says, *That is none of your business, Charley.*
And after that I never ask any more.

"She has a small revolver which she carries in
her belt. Sometimes, on trail, she makes practice
with revolver. I laugh. 'What for you laugh,
Charley ?' she ask. * What for you play with that ?*
I say. 'It is no good. It is too small. It is for a
child, a little plaything.' When we get back to
Dawson she ask me to buy good revolver for her.
I buy a Colt's 44. It is very heavy, but she carry
it in her belt all the time.

"At Dawson comes the man. Which way he
come I do not know. Only do I know he is che-
cha-quo — what you call tenderfoot. His hands
are soft, just like hers. He never do hard work.
He is soft all over. At first I think maybe he is
her husband. But he is too young. Also, they
make two beds at night. He is maybe twenty years

THE SUN-DOG TRAIL 219

old. His eyes blue, his hair yellow, he has a little
mustache which is yellow. His name is John
Jones. Maybe he is her brother. I do not know,
I ask questions no more. Only I think his name
not John Jones. Other people call him Mr. Girvan.
I do not think that is his name. I do not think her
name is Miss Girvan, which other people call her.
I. think nobody know their names.

^'One night I am asleep at Dawson. He wake
me up. He says, *Get the dogs ready; we start.'
No more do I ask questions, so I get the dogs ready
and we start. We go down the Yukon. It is
night-time, it is November, and it is very cold —
sixty-five below. She is soft. He is soft. The
cold bites. They get tired. They cry under their
breaths to themselves. By and by I say better we
stop and make camp. But they say that they will
go on. Three times I say better to make camp and
rest, but each time they say they will go on. After
that I say nothing. All the time, day after day, is
it that way. They are very soft. They get stiff
and sore. They do not understand moccasins, and
their feet hurt very much. They limp, they staggei
like drunken people, they cry under their breaths;

220 THE SUN-DOG TRAIL

and all the time thqr say» 'On! on! We will go
on!'

''They are like ctzxy people. All the time do
they go on, and on. Why do they go on? I do
not know. Only do they go on. What are they
after? I do not know. They are not after gold.
There is no stampede. Besides, they spend plenty
of money. But I ask questions no more. I» too,
go on and on, because I am strong on the trail and
because I am greatly paid.

"We make Circle City. That for which they
look is not there. I think now that we will rest,
and rest the dogs. But we do not rest, not for one
day do we rest. 'Come,* says the woman to the
man, 'let us go on.* And we go on. We leave the
Yukon. We cross the divide to the west and
swing down into the Tanana Country. There are
new diggings there. But that for which they look
is not there, and we take the back trail to Circle
City.

"It is a hard journey. December is most gone.
The days are short. It is very cold. One morning
it is seventy below zero. ' Better that we do not travel
to-day,' I say, 'else will the frost be unwarmed in

THE SUN-DOG TRAIL 221

the breathing and bite all the edges of our lungs.
After that we will have bad cough, and maybe next
spring will come pneumonia/ But they are che^
cha-quo. They do not understand the trail. They
are like dead people they are so tired, but they say,
*Let us go on/ We go on. The frost bites their
lungs, and they get the dry cough. They cough
till the tears run down their cheeks. When bacon
is frying they must run away from the fire and cough
half an hour in the snow. They freeze their cheeks
a little bit, so that the skin turns black and is very
sore. Also, the man freezes his thumb till the end
is like to come off, and he must wear a large thumb
on his mitten to keep it warm. And sometimes,
when the frost bites hard and the thumb is very
cold, he must take off the mitten and put the hand
between his legs next to the skin, so that the thumb
may get warm again.

"We limp into Circle City, and even I, Sitka
Charley, am tired. It is Christmas Eve. I dance,
drink, make a good time, for to-morrow is Christmas
Day and we will rest. But no. It is five o'clock
in the morning — Christmas morning. I am two
hours asleep. The man stand by my bed. 'Come,

222 THE SUN-DOG TRAIL

Charley/ he says, 'harness the dogs. Wc
start/

''Have I not said that I ask questions no more?
They pay me seven hundred and fifty dollars eack
month. They are my masters. I am their man.
If they say, 'Charley, come, let us start for hell/
I will harness the dogs, and snap the whip, and
start for hell. So I harness the dogs, and we start
down the Yukon. Where do we go? They do
not say. Only do they say, 'On! on! We will
go on!'

"They are very weary. They have travelled
many hundreds of miles, and they do not under-
stand the way of the trail. Besides, their cough is
very bad — the dry cough that makes strong men
swear and weak men cry. But they go on. Every
day they go on. Never do they rest the dogs.
Always do they buy new dogs. At every camp, at
every post, at every Indian village, do they cut out
the tired dogs and put in fresh dogs. They have
much money, money without end, and like water
they spend it. They are crazy ? Sometimes I think
so, for there is a devil in them that drives them on
and on, always on. What is it that they try to find ?

THE SUN-DOG TRAIL 223

It is not gold. Never do they dig in the ground.
I think a long time. Then I think it is a man they
try to find. But what man ? Never do we see the
man. Yet are they like wolves on the trail of the
kill. But they are funny wolves, soft wolves, baby
wolves who do not understand the way of the trail.
They cry aloud in their sleep at night. In their
sleep they moan and groan with the pain of their
weariness. And in the day, as they stagger along
the trail, they cry under their breaths. They are
funny wolves.

"We pass Fort Yukon. We pass Fort Hamilton.
We pass Minook. January has come and nearly
gone. The days are very short. At nine o'clock
comes daylight. At three o'clock comes night.
And it is cold. And even I, Sitka Charley, am tired.
Will we go on forever this way without end ? I do
not know. But always do I look along the trail
for that which they try to find. There are few
people on the trail. Sometimes we travel one hun-
dred miles and never see a sign of life. It is very
quiet. There is no sound. Sometimes it snows,
and we are like wandering ghosts. Sometimes it is
clear, and at midday the sun looks at us for a

224 THE SUN-DOG TRAIL

moment over the hills to the south. The northern
lights flame in the sky, and the sun-dogs dance,
and the air is filled with frost-dust.

''I am Sitka Charley, a strong man. I was bom
on the trail, and all my days have I lived on the
trail. And yet have these two baby wolves made
me very tired. I am lean, like a starved cat, and
I am glad of my bed at night, and in the morning
am i greatly weary. Yet ever are we hitting the
trail in the d^rk before daylight, and still on the
trail does the dark after nightfall find us. These
two baby wolves ! If I am lean like a starved cat,
they are lean like cats that have never eaten and
have died. Their eyes are sunk deep in their heads,
bright sometimes as with fever, dim and cloudy
sometimes like the eyes of the dead. Their cheeks
are hollow like caves in a cliff. Also are their
cheeks black and raw from many freezings. Some-
times it is the woman in the morning who says,
*I cannot get up. I cannot move. Let me die.'
And it is the man who stands beside her and says,
*G>me, let us go on.* And they go on. And some-
times it is the man who cannot get up, and the
woman says, *Come, let us go on.' But the one

THE SUN-DOG TRAIL 225

thing they do, and always do, is to go on. Always
do they go on,

^'Sometimes, at the trading posts, the man and
woman get letters. I do not know what is in the
letters. But it is the scent that they follow, these
letters themselves are the scent. One time an
Indian gives them a letter. I talk with him pri-
vately. He says it is a man with one eye who gives
him the letter, a man who travels fast down the
Yukon. That is all. But I know that the baby
wolves are after the man with the one eye.

*'It is February, and we have travelled fifteen
hundred miles. We are getting near Bering Sea,
and there are storms and blizzards. The going is
hard. We come to Anvig. I do not know, but I
think sure they get a letter at Anvig, for they are
much excited, and they say, *Come, hurry, let us go
on.' But I say we must buy grub, and they say
we must travel light and fast. Also, they say that
we can get grub at Charley McKeon's cabin. Then
do I know that they take the big cut-ofF, for it is
there that Charley McKeon lives where the Black
Rock stands by the trail.

"Before we start, I talk maybe two minutes with
Q

S26 THE SUN-DOG TRAIL

the priest at Anvig. Yes, there is a man with one
eye who has gone by and who travels fast." And I
know that for which they look is the man with the
one eye. We leave Anvig with little grub, and
travel light and fast. There are three fresh dogs
bought in Anvig, and we travel very fast. The
man and woman are like mad. We start earlier
in the morning, we travel later at night. I look
sometimes to see them die, these two baby wolves,
but they will not die. They go on and on. When
the dry cough take hold of them hard, they hold
their hands against their stomach and double up
in the snow, and cough, and cough, and cough.
They cannot walk, they cannot talk. Maybe for
ten minutes they cough, maybe for half an hour,
and then they straighten up, the tears from the
coughing frozen on their faces, and the words they
say are, *Come, let us go on.*

"Even I, Sitka Charley, ^m greatly weary, and
I think seven hundred and fifty dollars is a cheap
price for the labor I do. We take the big cut-ofF,
and the trail is fresh. The baby wolves have their
noses down to the trail, and they say, * Hurry!*
All the time do they say, * Hurry ! Faster ! Faster !*

THE SUN-DOG TRAIL 227

It is hard on the dogs. We have not much food and
we cannot give them enough to eat, and they grow
weak. Also, they must work hard. The woman
has true sorrow for them, and often, because of
them, the tears are in her eyes. But the devil in
her that drives her on will not let her stop and rest
the dogs.

"And th^n we come upon the man with the one
eye. He is in the snow by the trail, and his leg is
broken. Because of the leg he has made a poor
camp, and has been lying on his blankets fot three
days and keeping a fire going. When we find him
he is swearing. He swears like hell. Never have
I heard a man swear like that man. I am glad.
Now that they have found that for which they look,
we will have rest. But the woman says, *Let us
start. Hurry!*

"I am surprised. But the man with the one eye
says, 'Never mind me. Give me your grub. You
will get more grub at McKeon's cabin to-morrow.
Send McKeon back for me. But do you go on/
Here is another wolf, an old wolf, and he, too,
thinks but the one thought, to go on. So we give
him our grub, which is not much, and we chop

338 THE SUN-DOG TRAIL

wood for his fire, and we take his strongest dogs and
go on. We left the man with one eye there in the
snow, and he died there in the snow, for McKeon
never went back for him. And who that man was,
and why he came to be there, I do not know. But
I think he was greatly paid by the man and the
woman, like me, to do their work for them.

''That day and that night we had nothing to eat,
and all next day we travelled fast, and we were weak
with hunger. Then we came to the Black Rock,
which rose five hundred feet above the trail. It
was at the end of the day. Darkness was coming,
and we could not find the cabin of McKeon. We
slept hungry, and in the morning looked for the
cabin. It was not there, which was a strange thing,
for everybody knew that McKeon lived in a cabin
at Black Rock. We were near to the coast, where
the wind blows hard and there is much snow. Every-
where there were small hills of snow where the wind
had piled it up. I have a thought, and I dig in one
and another of the hills of snow. Soon I find the
walls of the cabin, and I dig down to the door. I
go inside. McKeon is dead. Maybe two or three
weeks he is dead. A sickness had come upon him

THE SUN-DOG TRAIL 229

so that he could not leave the cabin. The wind and
the snow had covered the cabin. He had eaten his
grub and died. I looked for his cache, but there
was no grub in it.

"*Let us go on/ said the woman. Her eyes were
hungry, and her hand was upon her heart, as with
the hurt of something inside. She bent back and
forth like a tree in the wind as she stood there.
*Yes, let us go on/ said the man. His voice was
hollow, like the klonk of an old raven, and he was
hunger-mad. His eyes were like live coals of fire,
and as his body rocked to and fro, so rocked his
soul inside. And I, too, said, 'Let us go on.' For
that one thought, laid upon me like a lash for every
mile of fifteen hundred miles, had burned itself into
my soul, and I think that I, too, was mad. Besides,
we could only go on, for there was no grub. And
we went on, giving no thought to the man with the
one eye in the snow.

"There is little travel on the big cut-ofF. Some-
times two or three months and nobody goes by.
The snow had covered the trail, and there was no
sign that men had ever come or gone that way.
All day the wind blew and the snow fell, and all

230 THE SUN-DOG TRAIL

day we travelled, while our stomachs gnawed their
desire and our bodies grew weaker with every step
they took. Then the woman began to fall. Then
the man. I did not fall, but my feet were heavy
and I caught my toes and stumbled many times.

"That night is the end of February. I kill three
ptarmigan with the woman's revolver, and we arc
made somewhat strong again. But the dogs have
nothing to eat. They try to eat their harness,
which is of leather and walrus-hide, and I must
fight them off with a club and hang all the harness
in a tree. And all night they howl and fight around
that tree. But we do not mind. We sleep like
dead people, and in the morning get up like dead
people out of their graves and go on along the trail.

"That morning is the ist of March, and on that
morning I see the first sign of that after which the
baby wolves are in search. It is clear weather,
and cold. The sun stay longer in the sky, and
there are sun-dogs flashing on either side, and the
air is bright with frost-dust. The snow falls no
more upon the trail, and I see the fref h sign of dogs
and sled. There is one man with that outfit, and
I see in the snow that he is not strong. He, too.

THE SUN-DOG TRAIL 231

has not enough to eat. The young wolves see the
freish sign, too, and they are much excited. * Hurry !*
they say. All the time they say, * Hurry! Faster,
Charley, faster!'

"We make hurry very slow. All the time the
man and the woman fall down. When they try to
ride on sled the dogs are too weak, and the dogs
fall down. Besides, it is so cold that if they ride
on the sled they will freeze. It is veiy easy for a
hungry man to freeze. When the woman fall
down, the man help her up. Sometimes the woman
help the man up. By and by both fall down and
cannot get up, and I must help them up all the
time, else they will not get up and will die there in
the snow. This is very hard work, for I am greatly
weary, and as well I must drive the dogs, and the
man and woman are very heavy with no strength
in their bodies. So, by and by, I, too, fall down in
the snow, and there is no one to help me up.
I must get up by myself. And always do I get up
by myself, and help them up, and make the dogs
go on.

"That night I get one ptarmigan, and we are
very hungry. And that night the man says to me,

232 THE SUN-DOG TRAIL

'What time start to-morrow, Charley?* It is like
the voice of a ghost. I say, * All the time you make
start at five o'clock/ * To-morrow,* he says, *we
will start at three o'clock.* I laugh in great bitter-
ness, and I say, 'You are dead man.* And he says,
* To-morrow we will start at three o*clock.'

"And we start at three o'clock, for I am their
man, and that which they say is to be done, I do.
It is clear and cold, and there is no wind. When
daylight comes we can see a long way off. And it
is very quiet. We can hear no sound but the beat
of our hearts, and in the silence that is a very loud
sound. We are like sleep-walkers, and we walk
in dreams until we fall down; and then we know
we must get up, and we see the trail once more and
hear the beating of our hearts. Sometimes, when
I am walking in dreams this way, I have strange
thoughts. Why does Sitka Charley live? I ask
myself. Why does Sitka Charley work hard, and
go hungry, and have all this pain ? For seven hun-
dred and fifty dollars a month, I make the answer,
and I know it is a foolish answer. Also is it a true
answer. And after that never again do I care for
money. For that day a large wisdom came to me.

THE SUN-DOG TRAIL 233

There was a great light, and I saw clear, anJ I knew
that it was not for money that a man must live, but
for a happiness that no man can give, or buy, or sell,
and that is beyond all value of all money in the
world.

"In the morning we come upon the last-night
camp of the man who is before us. It is a poor
camp, the kind a man makes who is hungry and
without strength. On the snow there are pieces of
blanket and of canvas, and I know what has hap-^
pened. His dogs have eaten their harness, and he
has made new harness out of his blankets. The
man and woman stare hard at what is to be seen,
and as I look at them my back feels the chill as
of a cold wind against the skin. Their eyes are
toil-mad and hunger-mad, and burn like fire deep
in their heads. Their faces are like the faces of
people who have died of hunger, and their cheeks
are black with the dead flesh of many freezings.
*Let us go on,' says the man. But the woman
coughs and falls in the snow. It is the dry cough
where the frost has bitten the lungs. For a long
time she coughs, then like a woman crawling out
of her grave she crawls to her feet. The tears are

^

234 THE SUN-DOG TRAIL

ice upon her cheeks, and her breath makes a noise
as it comes and goes, and she says, 'Let us go on/

"We go on. And we walk in dreams through
the silence. And every time we walk is a dream
and we are without pain; and every time we fall
down is an awakening, and we see the snow and
the mountains and the fresh trail of the man who
is before us, and we know all our pain again. We
come to where we can see a long way over the snow,
and that for which they look is before them. A
mile away there are black spots upon the snow.
The black spots move. My eyes are dim, and I
must stiffen my soul to see. And I see one man
with dogs and a sled. The baby wolves see, too.
They can no longer talk, but they whisper, *On,
on. Let us hurry!'

"And they fall down, but they go on. The man
who is before us, his blanket harness breaks often,
and he must stop and mend it. Our harness is
good, for I have hung it in trees each night. At
eleven o'clock the man is half a mile away. At
one o'clock he is a quarter of a mile away. He is
very weak. We see him fall down many times in
the snow. One of his dogs can no longer travel,

THE SUN-DOG TRAIL 235

and he cuts it out of the harness. But he does not
kill it. I kill it with the axe as I go by, as I kiU one
of my dogs which loses its legs and can travel no

more.
ft

Now we are three hundred yards away. We
go veiy slow. Maybe in two, three hours we go
one mile. We do not walk. All the time we fall
down. We stand up and stagger two steps, maybe
three steps, then we faU down again. And all the
time I must help up the man and woman. Some-'
times they rise to their knees and fall forward,
maybe four or five times before they can get to their
feet again and stagger two or three steps and fall.
But always do they fall forward. Standing or
kneeling, always do they fall forward, gaining on
the trail each time by the length of their bodies.

"Sometimes they crawl on hands and knees like
animals that live in the forest. We go like snails,
like snails that are dying we go so slow. And yet
we go faster than the man who is before us. For
he, too, falls all the time, and there is no Sitka
Charley to lift him up. Now he is two hundred
yards away. After a long time he is one hundred
yards away.

236 THE SUN-DOG TRAIL

""It is a funny sight. I want to laugh out loud,
Ha I ha ! just like that, it is so funny. It is a race
of dead men and dead dogs. It is like in a dream
when you have a nightmare and run away veiy
fast for your life and go very slow. The man who
is with me is mad. The woman is mad. I am mad.
All the world is mad, and I want to laugh, it is so
funny.

''The stranger-man who is before us leaves his
dogs behind and goes on alone across the snow.
After a long time we come to the dogs. They lie
helpless in the snow, their harness of blanket and
canvas on them, the sled behind them, and as we
pass them they whine to us and cry like babies that
are hungry.

"Then we, too, leave our dogs and go on alone
across the snow. The man and the woman are
nearly gone, and they moan and groan and sob,
but they go on. I, too, go on. I have but one
thought. It is to come up to the stranger-man.
Then it is that I shall rest, and not until then shall
I rest, and it seems that I must lie down and sleep
for a thousand years, I am so tired.

"The stranger-man is fifty yards away, all alone

THE SUN-DOG TRAIL 237

in the white snow. He falls and crawls, staggers,
and falls and crawls again. He is like an animal
that is sore wounded and trying to run from the
hunter. By and by he crawls on hands and knees.
He no longer stands up. And the man and woman
no longer stand up. They, too, crawl after him on
hands and knees. But I stand up. Sometimes I
fall, but always do I stand up again.

''It is a strange thing to see. All about is the
snow and the silence, and through it crawl the man
and the woman, and the stranger-man who goes
before. On either side the sun are sun-dogs, so
that there are three suns in the sky. The frost-
dust is like the dust of diamonds, and all the air
is filled with it. Now the woman coughs, and lies
still in the snow until the fit has passed, when she
crawls on again. Now the man looks ahead, and
he is blear-eyed as with old age and must rub his
eyes so that he can see the stranger-man. And
now the stranger-man looks back over his shoulder.
And Sitka Charley, standing upright, maybe falls
down and stands upright again.

"After a long time the stranger-man crawls no
more. He stands slowly upon his feet and rocks

238 THE SUN-DOG TRAIL

back and forth. Also does he take off one mitten
and wait with revolver in his hand, rocking back
and forth as he waits. His face is skin and bones
and frozen black. It is a hungiy face. The eyes
are deep-sunk in his head, and the lips are snarling.
The man and woman, too, get upon their feet and
they go toward him very slowly. And all about is
the snow and the silence. And in the sky are three
suns, and all the air is flashing with the dust c^
diamonds.

''And thus it was that I, Sitka Charley, saw the
baby wolves make their kill. No word is spoken.
Only does the stranger-man snarl with his hungry
face. Also does he rock to and fro, his shoulders
drooping, his knees bent, and his legs wide apart so
that he does not fall down. The man and the woman
stop maybe fifty feet away. Their legs, too, are
wide apart so that they do not fall down, and their
bodies rock to and fro. The stranger-man is very
weak. His arm shakes, so that when he shoots at
the man his bullet strikes in the snow. The man
cannot take off his mitten. The stranger-man
shoots at him again, and this time the bullet goes
by in the air. Then the man takes the mitten in

THE SXJN-DOG TRAIL 239

his teeth and pulls it off. But his hand is frozen
and he cannot hold the revolver, and it falls in the
snow. I look at the woman. Her mitten is off,
and the big Colt's revolver is in her hand. Three
times she shoot, quick, just like that. The hungry
face of the stranger^man is still snarling as he falls
forward into the snow.

"They do not look at the dead man. *Let
us go on/ they say. And we go on. But now
that they have found that for which they look,
they are like dead. The last strength has gone out
of them. They can stand no more upon their feet.
They will not crawl, but desire only to close their
eyes and sleep. I see not far away a place for
camp. I kick them. I have my dog-whip, and I
give them the lash of it. They cry aloud, but they
must crawl. And they do crawl to the place for
camp. I build fire so that they will not freeze.
Then I go back for sled. Also, I kill the dogs of
the stranger-man so that we may have food and
not die. I put the man and woman in blankets
and they sleep. Sometimes I wake them and give
them little bit of food. They are not awake, but
they take the food. The woman sleep one day

240 THE SUN-DOG TRAIL

and a half. Then she wake up and go to sleep
again. The man sleep two days and wake up and
go to sleep again. After that we go down to the
coast at St. Michaels. And when the ice goes out
of Bering Sea, the man and woman go away on a
steamship. But first they pay me my seven hun-
dred and fifty dollars a month. Also, they make
me a present of one thousand dollars. And that
was the year that Sitka Charley gave much money
to the Mission at Holy Cross.**

"But why did they kill the man?** I asked.

Sitka Charley delayed reply until he had lighted
his pipe. He glanced at the Police Gazette illustra-
tion and nodded his head at it familiarly. Then
he said, speaking slowly and ponderingly:

"I have thought much. I do not know. It is
something that happened. It is a picture I remem-
ber. It is like looking in at the window and seeing
the man writing a letter. They came into my life
and they went out of my life, and the picture is
as I have said, without beginning, the end without
understanding.**

"You have painted many pictures in the telling,**
I said.

THE SUN-DOG TRAIL 241

'*Ay/* he nodded his head. "But they were
without beginning and without end/'

"The last picture of all had an end/' I said.
"Ay/* he answered. "But what end?*'
"It was a piece of life,** I said.
"Ay,** he answered. "It was a piece of lifc*^

NEGORE, THE COWARD

NEGORE, THE COWARD

HE had followed the trail of his fleeing people
for eleven days, and his pursuit had been in
itself a flight; for behind him he knew full
well were the dreaded Russians, toiling through the
swampy lowlands and over the steep divides, bent
on no less than the extermination of all his people.
He was travelling light. A rabbit-skin sleeping-
robe, a muzzle-loading rifle, and a few pounds of
sun-dried salmon constituted his outfit. He would
have marvelled that a whole people — women and
children and aged — could travel so swiftly, had he
not known the terror that drove them on.

It was in the old days of the Russian occupancy
of Alaska, when the nineteenth century had run
but half its course, that Negore fled after his fleeing
tribe and came upon it this summer night by the
head waters of the Pee-lat. Though near the mid-
night hour, it was bright day as he passed through
the weary camp. Many saw him, all knew him,
but few and cold were the greetings he received.

245

246 NEGORE, THE COWARD

"Negore, the G)ward," he heard lUiha, a young
woman, laugh, and Sun-ne, his sister's daughter,
laughed with her.

Black anger ate at his heart; but he gave no
sign, threading his way among the camp-fires until
he came to one where sat an old man. A young
woman was kneading with skilful fingers the tired
muscles of his legs. He raised a sightless face
and listened intently as Negore's foot crackled a
dead twig.

"Who comes?'* he queried in a thin, tremulous
voice.

"Negore," said the young woman, scarcely look-
ing up from her task.

Negore's face was expressionless. For many
minutes he stood and waited. The old man's
head had sunk back upon his chest. The young
woman pressed and prodded the wasted muscles,
resting her body on her knees, her bowed head
hidden as in a cloud by her black wealth of hair.
Negore watched the supple body, bending at the
hips as a lynx's body might bend, pliant as a young
willow stalk, and, withal, strong as only youth is
strong. He looked, and was aware of a great

NEGORE, THE COWARD 247

yearning, akin in sensation to physical hunger.
At last he spoke, saying:

"Is there no greeting for Negore, who has been
long gone and has but now come back?*'

She looked up at him with cold eyes. The old
man chuckled to himself after the manner of the
old.

"Thou art my woman, Oona,'* Negore said, his
tones dominant and conveying a hint of menace.

She arose with catlike ease and suddenness to
her full height, her eyes flashing, her nostrils quiver-
ing like a deer's.

"I was thy woman to be, Negore, but thou art a
coward; the daughter of Old Kinoos mates not
with a coward!'*

She silenced him with an imperious gesture as he
strove to speak.

"Old Kinoos and I came among you from a
strange land. Thy people took us in by their fires
and made us warm, nor asked whence or why we
wandered. It was their thought that Old Kinoos
had lost the sight of his eyes from age ; nor did Old
Kinoos say otherwise, nor did I, his daughter. Old
Kinoos is a brave man, but Old Kinoos was never

g48 NEGORE, THE COWARD

a boaster. And now, when I tell thee of how his
blindness came to be, thou wilt know, beyond
question, that the daughter of Kinoos cannot
mother the children of a coward such as thou art,
Negore."

Again she silenced the speech that rushed up to
his tongue.

'^ Know, Negore, if journey be added unto journey
of all thy joumeyings through this land, thou
wouldst not come to the unknown Sitka on the Great
Salt Sea. In that place there be many Russian folk,
and their rule is harsh. And from Sitka, Old
Kinoos, who was Young Kinoos in those days, fled
away with me, a babe in his arms, along the islands
in the midst of the sea. My mother dead tells the
tale of his wrong; a Russian, dead with a spear
through breast and back, tells the tale of the ven-
geance of Kinoos.

" But wherever we fled, and however far we fled,
always did we find the hated Russian folk. Kinoos
was unafraid, but the sight of them was a hurt to
his eyes; so we fled on and on, through the seas
and years, till we came to the Great Fog Sea, Negore,
of which thou hast heard, but which thou hast never

NEGORE, THE COWARD 249

seen. We lived among many peoples, and I grew
to be a woman; but Kinoos, growing old, took to
him no other woman, nor did I take a man.

"At last we came to Pastolik, which is where the
Yukon drowns itself in the Great Fog Sea. Here
we lived long, on the rim of the sea, among a people
by whom the Russians were well hated. But some-
times they came, these Russians, in great ships^
and made the people of Pastolik show them the way
through the islands uncountable of the many-
mouthed Yukon. And sometimes the men they
took to show them the way never came back, till
the people became angry and planned a great plan.

"So, when there came a ship. Old Kinoos stepped
forward and said he would show the way. He was
an old man then, and his hair was white; but he
was unafraid. And he was cunning, for he took
the ship to where the sea sucks in to the land and
the waves beat white on the mountain called Ro-
manoff. The sea sucked the ship in to where the
waves beat white, and it ground upon the rocks
and broke open its sides. Then came all the people
of Pastolik, (for this was the plan), with their war-
spears, and arrows, and some few guns. But first

aSo NEGORE, THE COWARD

the Russians put out the eyes of Old Kinoos that
he might never show the way again, and then they
fought, where the waves beat white, with the people
of Pastolik.

"Now the head-man of these Russians was Ivan.
He it was, with his two thumbs, who drove out the
eyes of Kinoos. He it was who fought his way
through the white water, with two men left of all
his men, and went away along the rim of the Great
Fog Sea into the north. Kinoos was wise. He
could see no more and was helpless as a child. So
he fled away from the sea, up the great, strange
Yukon, even to Nulato, and I fled with him.

"This was the deed my father did, Kinoos, an
old man. But how did the young man, Negore ?"

Once again she silenced him.

"With my own eyes I saw, at Nulato, before the
gates of the great fort, and but few days gone.
I saw the Russian, Ivan, who thrust out my father's
eyes, lay the lash of his dog-whip upon thee and
beat thee like a dog. This I saw, and knew thee
for a coward. But I saw thee not, that night, when
all thy people — yea, even the boys not yet hunters
— fell upon the Russians and slew them all.'*

NEGORE, THE COWARD 251

•*Not Ivan/' said Negore, quietly. "Even now is
he on our heels, and with him many Russians fresh
up from the sea/'

Oona made no effort to hide her surprise and
chagrin that Ivan was not dead, but went on :

"In the day I saw thee a coward; in the night,
when all men fought, even the boys not yet hunters,
I saw thee not and knew thee doubly a coward/*

"Thou art done ? All done?** Negore asked.

She nodded her head and looked at him askance,
as though astonished that he should have aught to
say.

"Know then that Negore is no coward/* he said;
and his speech was very low and quiet. "Know
that when I was yet a boy I journeyed alone down
to the place where the Yukon drowns itself in the
Great Fog Sea. Even to Pastolik I journeyed, and
even beyond, into the north, along the rim of the
f sea. This I did when I was a boy, and I was no
coward. Nor was I coward when I journeyed, a
young man and alone, up the Yukon farther than
man had ever been, so far that I came to another
folk, with white faces, who live in a great fort and
talk speech other than that the Russians talk. Also

\

aSa NEGORE, THE COWARD

have I killed the great bear of the Tanana country,
where no one of my people hath ever been. And I
have fought with the Nuklukyets, and the Kaltags,
and the Sticks in far regions, even I, and alone.
These deeds, whereof no man knows, I speak for
myself. Let my people speak for me of things I
have done which they know. They will not say
Negore is a coward/'

He finished proudly, and proudly waited.

"These be things which happened before I came
into the land," she said, " and I know not of them.
Only do I know what I know, and I know I saw
thee lashed like a dog in the day; and in the night,
when the great fort flamed red and the men killed
and were killed, I saw thee not. Also, thy people
do call thee Negore, the Coward. It is thy name
now, Negore, the Coward."

" It is not a good name," Old Kinoos chuckled.

"Thou dost not understand, Kinoos," Negore
said gently. "But I shall make thee understand.
Know that I was away on the hunt of the bear, with
Kamo-tah, my mother's son. And Kamo-tah fought
with a great bear. We had no meat for three days,
and Kamo-tah was not strong of arm nor swift of

NEGORE, THE COWARD 253

foot. And the great bear crushed him, so, till his
bones cracked like diy sticks. Thus I found him,
very sick and groaning upon the ground. And
there was no meat, nor could I kill aught that the
sick man might eat.

"So I said, *I will go to Nulato and bring thee
food, also strong men to carry thee to camp/ And
Kamo-tah said, 'Go thou to Nulato and get food»
but say no word of what has befallen me. And
when I have eaten, and am grown well and strong,
I will kill this bear. Then will I return in honor
to Nulato, and no man may laugh and say Kamo-tah
was undone by a bear/

"So I gave heed to my brother's words; and when
I was come to Nulato, and the Russian, Ivan, laid
the lash of his dog-whip upon me, I knew I must
not fight. For no man knew of Kamo-tah, sick and
groaning and hungry; and did I fight with Ivan,
and die, then would my brother die, too. So it
was, Oona, that thou sawest me beaten like a dog.

"Then I heard the talk of the shamans and chiefs
that the Russians had brought strange sicknesses
upon the people, and killed our men, and stolen
our women, and that the land must be made clean*

954 NEGORE, THE COWARD

As I say, I heard the talk, and I knew it for good
talk, and I knew that in the night the Russians were
te be killed. But there was my brother, Kamo-tah,
sick and groaning and with no meat; so I could not
stay and fight with the men and the boys not yet
hunters.

''And I took with me meat and fish, and the lash-
marks of Ivan, and I found Kamo-tah no longer
groaning, but dead. Then I went back to Nulato,
and, behold, there was no Nulato — only ashes
where the great fort had stood, and the bodies of
many men. And I saw the Russians come up the
Yukon in boats, fresh from the sea, many Russians;
and I saw Ivan creep forth from where he lay hid
and make talk with them. And the next day I
saw Ivan lead them upon the trail of the tribe.
Even now are they upon the trail, and I am here,
Negore, but no coward."

"This is a tale I hear," said Oona, though her
voice was gentler than before. "Kamo-tah is dead
and cannot speak for thee, and I know only what
I know, and I must know thee of my own eyes for
no coward."

Negore made an impatient gesture.

NEGORE, THE COWARD 255

"There be ways and ways/' she added. "Art
thou willing to do no less than what Old Kinoos
hath done?''

He nodded his head, and waited.

"As thou hast said, they seek for us even now,
these Russians. Show them the way, Negore, even
as Old Kinoos showed them the way, so that they
come, unprepared, to where we wait for them, in a
passage up the rocks. Thou knowest the place,
where the wall is broken and high. Then will we
destroy them, even Ivan. When they cling like flies
to the wall, and top is no less near than bottom, our
men shall fall upon them from above and either
side, with spears, and arrows, and guns. And the
women and children, from above, shall loosen the
great rocks and hurl them down upon them. It will
be a great day, for the Russians will be killed, the
land will be made clean, and Ivan, even Ivan who
thrust out my father's eyes and laid the lash of his
dog-whip upon thee, will be killed. Like a dog gone
mad will he die, his breath crushed out of him be-
neath the rocks. And when the fighting begins^ it
is for thee, Negore, to crawl secretly away so that
thou be not slain."

ajS NEGORE, THE COWARD

**Evcn so/' he answered. "Negore will show
them the way. And then ?'*

''And then I shall be thy woman, Negore's woman^
the brave man's woman. And thou shalt hunt meat
for me and Old Kinoos, and I shall cook thy food,
and sew thee warm parkas and strong, and make
thee moccasins after the way of my people, which
is a better way than thy people's way. And as I
say» I shall be thy woman, Negore, always thy
woman. And I shall make thy life glad for thee^
so that all thy days will be a song and laughter,
and thou wilt know the woman Oona as unlike all
•ther women, for she has journeyed far, and lived
in strange places, and is wise in the ways of men
and in the ways they may be made glad. And in
thine old age will she still make thee glad, and thy
memory of her in the days of thy strength will be
sweet, for thou wilt know always that she was ease
to thee, and peace, and rest, and that beyond all
women to other men has she been woman to thee."

"Even so," said Negore, and the hunger for her
ate at his heart, and his arms went out for her as
a hungry man's arms might go out for food.

"When thou hast shown the way, Negore," she

NEGORE, THE COWARD 257

chided him; but her eyes were soft and warm, and
he knew she looked upon him as woman had never
looked before.

"It is well/* he said, turning resolutely on his
heel. "I go now to make talk with the chiefs, so
that they may know I am gone to show the Rus-
sians the way.**

"Oh, Negore, my man! my man!** she said to
herself, as she watched him go, but she said it so
softly that even Old Kinoos did not hear, and his
ears were over keen, what of his blindness.

Three days later, having with craft ill-concealed
his hiding-place, Negore was dragged forth like a
rat and brought before Ivan — "Ivan the Terrible**
he was known by the men who marched at his back.
Negore was armed with a miserable bone-barbed
spear, and he kept his rabbit-skin robe wrapped
closely about him, and though the day was warm
he shivered as with an ague. He shook his head
that he did not understand the speech Ivan put at
him, and made that he was very weary and sick,
and wished only to sit down and rest, pointing the
while to his stomach in sign of his sickness, and

2SS NEGORE, THE COWARD

shivering fiercely. But Ivan had with him a man
from Pastolik who talked the speech of Negore,
and many and vain were the questions they asked
him concerning his tribe, till the man from Pastolik,
who was called Karduk, said:

" It is the word of Ivan that thou shalt be lashed
till thou diest if thou dost not speak. And know,
strange brother, when I tell thee the word of Ivan
is the law, that I am thy friend and no friend of
Ivan. For I come not willingly from my country
by the sea, and I desire greatly to live; wherefore
I obey the will of my master — as thou wilt obey,
strange brother, if thou art wise, and wouldst live.*'

"Nay, strange brother,** Negore answered, "I
know not the way my people are gone, for I was
sick, and they fled so fast my legs gave out from
under me, and I fell behind.**

Negore waited while Karduk talked with Ivan.
Then Negore saw the Russian's face go dark, and
he saw the men step to either side of him, snapping
the lashes of their whips. Whereupon he betrayed
a great fright, and cried aloud that he was a sick
man and knew nothing, but would tell what he
knew. And to such purpose did he tell, that Ivan

NEGORE, THE COWARD 259

gave the word to his men to march, and on either
side of Negore marched the men with the whips,
that he might not run away. And when he made
that he was weak of his sickness, and stumbled
and walked not so fast as they walked, they laid
their lashes upon him till he screamed with pain
and discovered new strength. And when Karduk
told him all would be well with him when they had
overtaken his tribe, he asked, "And then may I
rest and move not?"

Continually he asked, "And then may I rest and
move not?"

And while he appeared very sick and looked about
him with dull eyes, he noted the fighting strength
of Ivan's men, and noted with satisfaction that Ivan
did not recognize him as the man he had beaten
before the gates of the fort. It was a strange fol-
lowing his dull eyes saw. There were Slavonian
hunters, fair-skinned and mighty-muscled; short,
squat Finns, with flat noses and round faces; Si-
berian half-breeds, whose noses were more like
eagle-beaks; and lean, slant-eyed men, who bore
in their veins the Mongol and Tartar blood as well
as the blood of the Slav. Wild adventurers they

76o NEGORE, THE COWARD

were, forayers and destroyers from the far lands
beyond the Sea of Bering, who blasted the new
and unknown world with fire and sword and clutched
greedily for its wealth of fur and hide. Negore
looked upon them with satisfaction, and in his
mind's eye he saw them crushed and lifeless at the
passage up the rocks. And ever he saw, waiting
for him at the passage up the rocks, the face and
the form of Oona, and ever he heard her voice in
his ears and felt the soft, warm glow of her eyes.
But never did he forget to shiver, nor to stumble
where the footing was rough, nor to cry aloud at the
bite of the lash. Also, he was afraid of Karduk,
for he knew him for no true man. His was a false
eye, and an easy tongue — a tongue too easy, he
judged, for the awkwardness of honest speech.

All that day they marched. And on the next,
when Karduk asked him at command of Ivan, he
said he doubted they would meet with his tribe till
the morrow. But Ivan, who had once been shown
the way by Old Kinoos, and had found that way
to lead through the white water and a deadly fight,
believed no more in anything. So when they came
to a passage up the rocks, he halted his forty men.

NEGORE, THE COWARD 26r

and through Karduk demanded if the way were
clear.

Negore looked at it shortly and carelessly. It
was a vast slide that broke the straight wall of a
clifF, and was overrun with brush and creeping
plants, where a score of tribes could have lain well
hidden.

He shook his head. "Nay, there be nothing
there," he said. "The way is clear."

Again Ivan spoke to Karduk, and Karduk said:

"Know, strange brother, if thy talk be not
straight, and if thy people block the way and fall
upon Ivan and his men, that thou shalt die, and
at once."

"My talk is straight," Negore said. "The way
is clear."

Still Ivan doubted, and ordered two of his Sla-
vonian hunters to go up alone. Two other men he
ordered to the side of Negore. They placed their
guns against his breast and waited. All waited.
And Negore knew, should one arrow fly, or one
spear be flung, that his death would come upon
him. The two Slavonian hunters toiled upward
till they grew small and smaller, and when they

262 NEGORE, THE COWARD

reached the top and waved their hats that all
was welly they were like black specks against the
sky.

The guns were lowered from Negore^s breast
and Ivan gave the order for his men to go forward.
Ivan was silent, lost in thought. For an hour he
marched, as though puzzled, and then, through
Karduk's mouth, he said to Negore:

"How didst thou know the way was clear when
thou didst look so briefly upon it?''

Negore thought of the little birds he had seen
perched among the rocks and upon the bushes,
and smiled, it was so simple; but he shrugged his
shoulders and made no answer. For he was think-
ing, likewise, of another passage up the rocks, to
which they would soon come, and where the little
birds would all be gone. And he was glad that
Karduk came from the Great Fog Sea, where there
were no trees or bushes, and where men learned
water-craft instead of land-craft and wood-craft.

Three hours later, when the sun rode overhead,
they came to another passage up the rocks, and
Karduk said:

"Look with all thine eyes, strange brother, and

NEGORE, THE COWARD 263

see if the way be clear, for Ivan is not minded this
time to wait while men go up before/*

Negore looked, and he looked with two men by
his side, their guns resting against his breast. He
saw that the little birds were all gone, and once he
saw the glint of sunlight on a rifle-barrel. And
he thought of Oona, and of her words : "And when
the fighting begins, it is for thee, Negore, to crawl
secretly away so that thou be not slain.**

He felt the two guns pressing on his breast. This
was not the way she had planned. There would
be no crawling secretly away. He would be the
first to die when the fighting began. But he said,
and his voice was steady, and he still feigned to see
with dull eyes and to shiver from his sickness:

"The way is clear.**

And they started up, Ivan and his forty men from
the far lands beyond the Sea of Bering. And
there was Karduk, the man from Pastolik, and
Negore, with the two guns always upon him. It
was a long climb, and they could not go fast; but
very fast to Negore they seemed to approach the
midway point where top was no less near than
bottom.

264 NEGORE, THE COWARD

A gun cracked among the rocks to the rights and
Ncgorc heard the war-yell of all his tribe, and for
an instant saw the rocks and bushes bristle alive
with his kinfolk. Then he felt torn asunder by a
burst of flame hot through his being, and as he fell ^
he knew the sharp pangs of life as it wrenches at
the flesh to be free.

But he gripped his life with a miser's clutch and
would not let it go. He still breathed the air, which
bit his lungs with a painful sweetness; and dimly
he saw and heard, with passing spells of blindness
and deafness, the flashes of sight and sound again
wherein he saw the hunters of Ivan falling to their
deaths, and his own brothers fringing the carnage
and filling the air with the tumult of their cries and
weapons, and, far above, the women and children
loosing the great rocks that leaped like things alive
and thundered down.

The sun danced above him in the sky, the huge
walls reeled and swung, and still he heard and saw
dimly. And when the great Ivan fell across his
legs, hurled there lifeless and crushed by a down-
rushing rock, he remembered the blind eyes of Old
Kinoos and was glad.

NEGORE, THE COWARD 265

Then the sounds died down, and the rocks no
longer thundered past, and he saw his tribespeople
creeping close and closer, spearing the wounded
as they came. And near to him he heard the scuffle
of a mighty Slavonian hunter, loath to die, and, half
uprisen, borne back and down by the thirsty spears.

Then he saw above him the face of Oona, and
felt about him the arms of Oona ; and for a moment
the sun steadied and stood still, and the great walls
were upright and moved not.

"Thou art a brave man, Negore,'* he heard her
say in his ear; "thou art my man, Negore."

And in that moment he lived all the life of glad-
ness of which she had told him, and the laughter
and the song, and as the sun went out of the sky
above him, as in his old age, he knew the memory of
her was sweet. And as even the memories dimmed
and died in the darkness that fell upon him, he knew
in her arms the fulfilment of all the ease and rest
she had promised him. And as black night wrapped
around him, his head upon her breast, he felt a
great peace steal about him, and he was aware of
the hush of many twilights and the mystery of
silence.

a bios DOS MbO A<IS

3523
C46L
1912

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